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ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATIONAL 
PROGRESS IN THE UNITED STATES 

1820-1850 



BY 

FRANK TRACY CARLTON 

Professor of Economics and History in Albion College 



A THK8IB SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

1906 



(REPRINTED FROM THE BULLETIN OF TH« UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN, ECO- 
NOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE SERIES, VOL. 4, NO. 1. PP. 1-135) 



MADISON. WISCONSIN 

1908 



^ 



^ 






970 



ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATIONAL 

PROGRESS IN THE UNITED STATES 

1820-1850 



BY 

FRANK TRACY CARLTON 

Professor of Economics and Histary in Albion College 



A THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY 

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

1906 



<REPRINTED FROM THE BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY Of WISCONSIN, ECO- 
NOMICS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE SERIES, VOL. -4, NO. 1, PP. 1-135) 



MADISON, WISCONSIN 

1908 



'^ 



Gift 
The Unlteralt,) 



CONTENTS 

PAGH 

INTRODUCTION 5 

Chapter I — The Colonial Period 8 

Chapter II — The Period of Transition 18 

(1). Educational Decline 18 

(2). Situation at the opening of the Period (1820-1850.) 22 

Chapter III — Fundaiuental Influences 29 

(1). The Growth of Population and Manufacture 29 

(2). The Extension of the Suffrage 33 

(3). The Humanitarian Movement 36 

(4). The Labor Movement 42 

Chapter IV— Arguments for and against Education 45 

Chapter V — The Alignment of Interests 72 

Chapter VI — Progress in Different States 88 

(1). Massachusetts 88 

(2). Connecticut 90 

(3). Rhode Island 93 

(4). New York 95 

(5). Pennsylvania 102 

(6). Vermont 108 

(7). Ohio 110 

(8). The South 113 

(9). Delaware 115 

Chapter VII — Concluding Remarks 119 

Appendix I — England and the United States: A Comparison 123 

Appendix II — Biographical Notes 129 

Bibliography 132 



ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATIONAL 
PROGRESS IN THE UNITED STATES 

1820-1850* 



INTEODUCTION 



The nineteenth eentnry witnessed a revohitionary transform- 
ation in education as well as in economic and social condi- 
tions. "Writers on educational development have almost "uni- 
formly adhered to the "great man" theory; few attempts have 
been made to trace the relation between educational advance 
and industrial progress; Economists have devoted much energy 
to the study of tariff and financial history, of the development 
of labor unions, of socialism and of other industrial, political 
and social phenomena connected with the progress of the na- 
tion. But the evolution of the public school system — one of 
the most characteristic institutions of the United States — has- 
not been carefully studied with the aim of bringing to light the 
underlying social and economic influences which have directed 
it. Nevertheless, the character of education — its aims, ideals, 
methods, values, scope and diffusion — is an important factor 
in fixing the economic and social conditions' of a given people 
and generation, and in influencing the future development of a 
nation. 

The scope of education in the centuries preceding the nine- 
teenth was very narrow. The development of the factory 
system and the grou-th of modern cities, accompanied by great 
changes in the manner of living and of working, have given the 
school new problems. — prolilems which formerly devolved upon 
the home and the workshop. The functions of an educational 



•Acknowledgment is made of assistance received from the American Bureau 
of Industrial Research in the preparation of this study. 

[5] 



b BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

system depend upon' the civilization of the people using that 
system, and upon the progress of the arts and sciences, in short, 
upon the economic and social conditions.^ In a primitive 
society the duties of the school were few; in a complex indus- 
trial society, having crowded population centers, practicing divi- 
sion of labor and specialization of industry, its functions be- 
come varied and important. The history of education should 
be an orderly account of the varying educational needs, and 
of the progressive and conservative forces which mold the 
educational institutions of different historic periods'. Three and 
possibly four, epochs may be distinguished in our educational 
progress. The last three are practically contemporaneous with 
periods of rapid economic and social change. Between these 
epochs' are intervals of slow educational advance or of retro- 
gression. Educational evolution, like industrial and social pro- 
gress, is not uniform, but irregular; it advances now rapidly, 
now slowly. In the early Colonial period, education was ad- 
vocated mainly by the Calvinistic clergy, and for religious rea- 
sons. The second epoch extends' approximately from 1820 to 
1850. Education was then urged on civic, economic and ethical 
grounds. During this period occurred the struggle for free 
tax-supported schools; and during the period the school be- 
came secular in character. In the third period (1875 — 1890) 
the industrial and psychological value of education was placed 
in the foreground; and the curriculum was rapidly expanded. 
At the threshold of the fourth epoch (1900 ) education be- 
gins to assume a paternalistic attitude. Sociological considera- 
tions now take an important place in pedagogical discussions. 
The school is assuming many new functions which were hither- 
to performed by the home.- 

Perhaps the most important contribution of the American 
people to educational advance is the general establishment of 
a tax-supported school system free for all children. It is our 
present task to study the period Avhich established beyond con- 
troversj^ in the United States, this important educational prin- 



' The writer, The Infiticnce of Recent Economic and Social CJwnges upon Edu- 
cational Aims, Ideals and Methods in Journal of Pedagogy, Marcti. 1906. 

-See article by the writer, The Home and the School in Education, December, 
1905. 



[6] 



^ • 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 7 

•ciple. In this period many agitations and reform movements 
sprang into being and flourished for a time. Are all these di- 
vergent agitations and reform movements isolated and discon- 
nected phenomena? Are these manifestations the results, 
solely or in most part, of the patient and arduous labors of 
scores of able and devoted men? Or have these movements 
some underlying, semi-hidden cause or causes? The task be- 
fore US' is to study and weigh the forces, direct and indirect, 
which led to the so-called "educational revival" of 1820 to 
1850. 



U] 



BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 



CHAPTER I 

THE COLONIAL PERIOD 

In a progressive age institutions, — legal, political, social and 
educational, — always lag behind economic progress. This is the 
normal result due to the action of reactionary or conservative 
forces, called precedent, which are crystallized into law, custom 
and sentiment. In order to underetand the progress of educa- 
tion, the modifications in its methods, aims and values, it is 
necessary to consider not only the changing social, economic and 
political conditions during our special period, but also to 
roughly survey the preceding period in which are found the 
roots of the later vigorous growth, or, in other words, the modi- 
fying and restraining influences which bear upon progress dur- 
ing the later epoch. 

The influence of New England was very marked throughout 
the entire westward movement of population. New England 
men became leaders, and carried with them and impressed upon 
the various new communities, New England customs', manners, 
religious beliefs and educational methods. Imitation played a 
considerable role in the development of the "West. The other 
settlers were dominated and influenced by the strong, individ- 
ualistic man from New England, and were soon found adopt- 
ing the customs and ideals of the latter. On account of this 
fact, if for no other reason, the attention may during the study 
of the early period of our history, be directed chiefly to New 
England. 

The roots of the free school movement may be easily traced 
back to Luther and the Reformation.^ Luther advocated com- 
pulsory education for all children, exactly as military service 
was made compulsory. "One of the cardinal requirements of 
democratic Calvinism has always been elementary education for 



' PeiTin, .T. W., Compulsory Education, 5. 

[8] 



CARLTOX — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 9 

everybody. In matters of religion all souls are equally con- 
cerned and each individual is ultimately responsible for him- 
self. The Scriptures are the rule of life, and accordinsrly each 
individual ought to be able to read them for himself, without 
dependence upon priests. Hence it is one of the prime duties 
of a congregation to insist that all members shall laiow ho.w to 
read and. if necessary, to provide them with the requisite in- 
struction." In accordance Avitli this Calvinistic idea some form 
of universal and compulsory elementary educ-ation sprang up 
during the 16th and 17th centuries wherever Calvinism had 
become dominant, — in the Protestant parts of France and Switz- 
erland, in PTolland, in the Netherlands, and in New England.^ 
This relation between religion and education is important, and 
furnishes the key to an understanding of our early educational 
development. The decadence of education during the later 
part of the 18tli and the early portion of the 19th centuries was 
a necessary and inevitable accompaniment of the weakening 
and the final severance of the ties which bound the two together. 
The so-called educational revival of the second quarter of the 
19th century is the result of the alliance of education with new 
forcesi. 

With the possible exception of Holland, it must be noted that 
the early schools which were the product of Calvinism were 
middle-class schools, rather than schools for the masses. In 
England, from the middle of the 16tli to well into the 17th 
century, a powerful educational movement manifested itself 
in the establishment of various kinds of schools, especially 
grammar schools. By the beginning of the 18th century, Eng- 
land was by no means poorly supplied with granniiar schools, 
while there were many schools of a lower grade, either free 
English schools or charity schools.^ In Scotland. John Knox 
did draw up a comprehensive scheme of education ; and an Act 
was passed which embodied many of its features. The law was, 
however, repealed a few years later at the time of the Restora- 
tion.* In Holland the leading class Avas composed of merchants, 



- Fiske, The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, 1 :33. 

^ Schafer, .Tos., The Origin of the Siifftem of Land Grants for Education, 8-10. 
Also Leach, A. P.. English Schools at the Time of the Reformation, 07 et seq. 
* Report of the Commissioner of Education (1889-1890), 1:220-23. 



[9] 



10 BULLETIN OF THE UXI\'ERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

and elementary education was valued as a training for a trading 
career.^ 

The early New England men avIio exerted such a powerful 
influence upon the development of the northern and western 
portions of the United States were drai^-n from the flower of a 
fine class of. English rural gentry and yeomen,*' They came to 
the New World in order to avoid persecution and oppression. 
They brought, with them English law, customs, traditions and 
form of local government; but under the modifying influence 
of a new environment and by reason of friction with the mother 
country, they modified many customs, the common law, and 
developed a set of maxims by means of which they justified the 
War of the Revolution. New England was made what thej^ 
considered to be a purified Old England. All men were de- 
clared to be free and equal; all were held to possess equal 
"natural" rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; 
but in the face of these high-sounding phrases, they continued 
the English conmion law with some modifications, they allowed 
imprisonment for debt, and they did not extend the suffrage to 
all males of voting age. ''Intolerable restrictions burdened the 
life of the common man. not manhood qualifications, but tax 
receipts, church creeds and white skins were required of those who 
would vote. . . . The man without land could not be trusted. 
The man without piety was not to have political power."" To 
the Puritan, "freedom and liberty meant the working out of a 
life soberly restrained according to the will of the majority."^ 
The democracy of the New England of the 17th and 18th cent- 
uries was quite different from that of Jackson, or of the present 
time. According to Revolutionary literature, the United States 
was committed to the doctrines of iRousseau ; but in actual prac- 
tice it more nearly adhered to the teachings of Burke. 

"Calvinism is congenial to those in whom the clannish spirit 
is strong. ' "* This clannish spirit led to the belief in the necessity 
of universal education and equal treatment for all men agree- 



^ Draper, A. S.. Origin and Devclopinrnt of ihc ycir York Common School Syx 
tern, 31. 

" Fiske, .Tohn, The Beoinnings of Kew England, SO. 
' Stevenson, R. T., History of Xorth America, 12 :1.3. Ed. by Lee. 
' Weeden, Economic and Social History of New England, 1 :79. 
» ratten, S. N., Development of Enqlisih Thought. 109. 

■ [10] 



CAELTON" — ECONOMIC IXFLUEXCES UPOX EDUCATION 11 

ing with them aud adhering to their belief. The English people 
"had also a strong feeling of the solidarity of responsibility, 
which emphasized the evils inliicted on the Avhole people by the 
w^rong acts of individuals and the need of national unity. "^° 
This feeling of a common individual responsibility for the acts 
of othere played an important part in building up the early 
New England school system. The weakening of the feeling of 
mutual responsibility as the settlements grew and the settlers 
became more and more independent of each other, is' also a 
factor in explanation of the decline in educational enthusiasm 
at a later period. The New England colonists came over in 
congregations, and continued, in their new home, the old church 
relationships. The soil and topography of New England were 
not well adapted to large scale farming; consequently, the 
physical characteristics of the country as well as the traditions 
•of the settlers tended to strengthen the political power of the 
local units. Towns, modeled after those of England, were 
formed, and land was held both in severalty and in common. 
The o^\Tier of a small holding was necessarily more or less de- 
pendent upon his neighbors, — a condition unlike that which 
existed imder the southern plantation system. The products 
and services of neighbors were frecpiently exchanged. The idea 
of interdependence and of mutual influence became firmly and 
deeply implanted in the minds and hearts of the New England 
people. Severalty implanted interdependence and individual- 
ity; conunonalty produced a feelino; of solidarity.^^ The south- 
ern plantations were more nearly self-supporting units than 
the small New England farms; and commonalty was lacking in 
the South. "There was no mutual dependence among planta- 
tions such as would have been observed if the estates had been 
small, which would have signified a division of labor. "^- The 
latter type of life developed a class of self-reliant, liberty-loving 
men; it tended to exalt the importance of the individual, to 
produce a more exaggerated form of individualism than devel- 
oped in New England. 

In studying the development of education in early New Eng- 

^oiUd.. 120. 

" Weeden. 1 :60. 

" Bruce, Economic History of Virginia in the 17th Century. 2 :56S. 

[11] 



12 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

land it should also be remembered that the right of taxation 
was carefully guarded, resting chiefly with the local units; and 
the close connection between religion and politics must not be 
overlooked. "The support of the ministers, at first voluntary, 
became a regular item of civic expense; they were generally 
chosen in open town meeting. Taxes were levied for the sup- 
port of religion, and attendance on worship was compulsory. 
The franchise depended on connection with the church in Mass- 
achusetts and Connecticut."^" Differences in religious belief 
did not at this time complicate the educational problem in New 
England. 

In 1642, twenty-two years after the landing of the Mayflower,, 
the first law relating to education in Massachusetts, was passed. 
This law asserted that the state had the right, and indeed that 
it was the duty of the state, to see that every child was educated. 
This Act gave the selectmen power to investigate as to the- 
training of all children under their jurisdiction. If the parent 
was found to have neglected his duty in this important matter,, 
he was liable to a fine. This law made education compulsory, 
but it made no provision for schools or for teachers. The teach- 
ers were ■ the parents or private tutors. The head of every 
family was in duty bound to educate his children in order to 
promote the religious and moral well-being of the community 
in which he lived. This educational law is comparable to the 
modern sanitary laws of our cities which require every house- 
holder to keep his' house and dooryard in a healthful and clean 
condition, in order that his property may not become a menace 
to the community and a center of infection. In both cases the 
police power of the state is invoked. 

Thus elementary education was at this period in the handi- 
craft or household stage of development, and was demanded 
primarily on religious grounds. Education was normally a part 
of household industry; and it was confined to a narrow range 
of subjects. Public bounty was first extended in New England 
to the colleges, not to what 'we now call the common schools. 
Reading, writing, and arithmetic were acquired as were shoe- 
making or weaving. Not until the local environment was broad- 



's Weeden, 1 :68-9. 

[12] 



CABLTON — ECONOMIC IXFLUEXCES UPON EDUCATION 13 

ened into a more general one by increased population, coupled 
with manufacture in factories and better means of communi- 
cation, did education, or could it. except of course in the ease 
of a fcM- specially favored individuals, expand beyond this 
rudimentary stage. Educational advance is very similar to 
the development of many industries. Indeed it might be said 
that there are three stages, namely, purely domestic, handicraft 
and factory. 

After the passage of the second ^Massachusetts law in 1647, 
we find supplemented by family instruction, "the outlines of a 
complete system of popular education in Massachusetts, — the 
elementary, the grammar or secondary schools and the college — 
all supported by the contributions of the people, private benefi- 
cence, public taxation and legislative grants. "^^ The or- 
dinance of November 11th, 16-47, reads in part as follows: — 
*'It being one of the chief projects of that old deluder, Satan, 
to keep men from the knowledge of the Scriptures, as in former 
times by keeping them in an unknown tongue, so in these latter 
times by persuading by the use of tongues, that so at least the 
true sense and meaning of the original might be clouded by 
false glosses of saint-seeming deceivers, that learning may not 
be buried in the grave of our fathers in the church and common- 
wealth, the Lord assisting our endeavors : — ■ 

''It is therefore ordered, that every township in this jurisdic- 
tion after the Lord hath increased them to the number of fifty 
householders, shall there forthwith appoint one within their 
town to teach all such children as shall resort to him to write 
and read, whose wages shall be paid either by the parent or 
masters of such children, or by the inhabitants in general by 
(Way of supply, as the major part of those that order the pru- 
dentials of the towns shall appoint ; Provided, those that send 
their children be not oppressed by paying more than they can 
have them taught for in other towns; and It is further ordered, 
that where any town shall increase to the number of one hun- 
dred families or householdei's. they shall set up a grammar 
school, the master thereof being able to instruct youth so far 
as thej' may be fitted for the university: Provided, that if any 



Riliort o' Coiumixfiioncr of f^iliiciition i ls'.i:'.-'.i4 i . 1 :r>.'C>. 

[131 



14 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

town neglect the performance hereof above one. year, that every- 
such town shall pay five pounds to the next until they shall 
perform their order. "^^ Three items in this act should be 
noted: — First, the school system is to be organized primarily in 
the interest of religion; second, public taxation for the support 
of schools is made optional with the local administrative units;, 
third, the town, not the parent, is held responsible for the exe- 
cution of the provis'ions of the act. In 1671 and again in 1683 
the above mentioned penalty was increased, tending to show, as 
Hinsdale points out, a waning interest in education. 

The course of events in Connecticut ran in similar channels. 
"The early records of the Town of Hartford are lost. The first 
mention of the school is in 1642, seven years after the first log- 
house was erected, — when an appropriation of thirty pounds 
is settled upon it. not as a new thing, but as one of the estab- 
lished interests of the town — a thing to be looked after, as much 
as the roads and bridges, the support of public worship, and 
protection against the Indians. "^° In 1650 an educational law 
was passed modeled after the jMassachusetts Act of 1647. In- 
terference on the part of the state in educational matters' was 
justified by "the indifference and indulgence of many parents 
and masters." In Rhode Island the strong opposition to the in- 
fluence of the clergy was an important factor in delaying the 
development of the public school system. "Here the idea pre- 
vailed, as it always has in England until very recently, that 
the public elementary schools are charitable institutions."^'^ 

There was little uniformity as to educational development. 
Some towns were zealous in the cause ; but others were extremely 
negligent. The constant pressure exerted upon the towns by the 
Colonial government aided greatly in the general development 
of education. The leaders who were sent to the general court 
were well-educated, religious men.' Here is the phenomenon of 
a trained, selected leadership imposing educational requirements 
in the name of religious and civic welfare of the community.^® 



1'' Uepi-intecl in Reijort of Coinminsioner of Education (1892-9J3), 1232. See also- 
The Colonial Laits of Mass. (Boston, 1880. Ueprinted from edition of 1660), 
190-91. 

^''Barnard's Jottrnal of Education (1857), 4:658. 

'■ I'errin, 26. 

" Schafer, Land Granta for Education, 21. 

[14] 



CARLTON — ECOXOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 15 

It may be Avell to i)oint out, at this place, that in the period, 
1820-1850, the striking features of the phenomenon will be 
found to be considerably modified. The humanitarian leaders 
of the later period, however, seemed to be the true successors 
of the religious leaders of Colonial times. A paragraph from 
the writings of a local historian throws more light upon the 
early situation. "It was not because there was a popular de- 
mand for the school that the school came ; it was because the 
men who influenced pul)lic sentiment — the best men in the Col- 
ony^ — led the people, and would take no refusal, that at last the 
public feeling rose to the task of supporting the school.. For 
though the government of the tOA^iis was democratic, and every 
church member had a vote, the best men nevertheless' took the 
place and the power which their education and capacity gave 
them, and dragged the lagging sentiment of the populace np to 
the demands of the times. "^^ In the elementary schools stress 
was laid upon the inculcation of moral virtues, and the gram- 
mar schools and colleges were intended as schools preparatory 
for teaching and preaching. "Finally the pious spirit 
of the ancient inhabitants of Wobuni manifested itself 
in their care for the religious education of their children and 
youth. — Regarding religion themselves as the principal thing; 
they were earnestly solicitous to inculcate the same great truth 
on the minds and hearts of their offspring."-'' 

The general education which the mass of the New England 
people received during the Colonial period has often been over- 
estimated. In support of this opinion, the views' of several 
writers will be quoted. "In those days, there was little civil 
law. or medicine, or book learning outside the clergy. All there 
was backed by the influence of property, went to regulate the 
towns, and to balance any excessive tendencies of the religious 
element."-^ "The people of Colonial Xew England were not 
all well-educated, nor were all their country schools better than 
old field schools. The farmer's boy, who was taught for two 
winter months by a man and two summer months by a woman, 
seldom learned more in the district school than how to read, 



'■' De Forest. H. P.. Hmloyii of Westborouf/h, Mass., 100. Also Schafer, 14. 
^"Sewall, History of M'ohuni, Mass., 00-7. 
*• Weeden, 1 :87. 

[15] 



16 BULLETIN OF THE UNRTERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

write and cipher."-- The prominence given to the grammar 
school and to religious instruction and the strict supervision ex- 
ercised by the ministers over the schools, makes Supt. Draper's 
charge against the early Engfish schools appear pertinent also 
to the schools of Colonial New England. The English treated 
"the elementary schools with indifference," and they desired 
"to educate leaders to the tenets of the state church, so far as 
religion might go, and who w^ould sympathize and agree with 
the English aristocracy^, so far as polities Avere concerned."-^ 
In like manner the New England leaders were solicitous for 
that kind of education Avhich tended to maintain the existing re- 
ligious belief and to preserve their leadership. As late as 1821 
it Avas Avritten of Ncav England that "education was entirely in 
the hands or under the direction of the clergy, Avho were all 
Independents and Calvinists. "-■* 

In the South, as Ave haA^e seen, economic conditions Avere radi- 
cally dissimilar. The difference between the early Ncav Eng- 
land settlers and those of Virginia and the Carolinas was not 
alone sufficient to produce great variations in their attitude man- 
ifested toAvard education. Tobacco, cotton, rice and indigo are 
crops favorable to the formation of the plantation system and 
the use of indentured and slaA'e labor. Fiske asserts that "the 
economic basis of that community [Virginia] Avas the cultiva- 
tion of tobacco on large plantations and from that single eco- 
nomic circumstance resulted"-" most of the peculiar social 
features of southern life. After 1646 there Avas "a consider- 
able amount of compulsory education in Virginia;" but the sys- 
tem of isolated plantations and the absence of any community 
life precluded the development of such a system of schools as 
was found in Ncav England. -''• In the South, therefore, a system 
of tax-supported schools could not be anticipated because of the 
wide separation of the plantations and the lack of community 
feeling betAveen the people of the different plantations, hofaus-; 
the plantation system produced a highly self-reliant and in- 



^- Fiske, Old Virf/inin and her Neighhors, 2:2.51. 

"" r)raDer. <>ri<i'ui mid Dcrclcpnirn't r.f the V. Y. Comm'.n School Siisttm, 31. 

^ Tudor, Wm., Letters of the Eastern States, ^84. 

-^ Fiske. Old Vhf/inia (itid her ycinhhors. '2 :17.j. 

=»/;>(>/., 240. 



[16] 



CAHLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 17 

clividiialistic class who would naturally oppose free tax-sup- 
ported education, and, lastly, because the presence of a class of 
indentured servants and of slaves constituted a barrier to the 
development of the free-school system. 

During the early Colonial period education was fostered pri- 
marily on the ground of religious necessity. The public schools 
were supported, as a rule, by means of land grants or other ap- 
propriations, local taxation, tuition and private beneficence. 
In certain localities, particularly in Massachusetts, the schools 
became practically free."' This is distinctly a period of middle- 
class control; clerg-janen dominated in the management of edu- 
cational affaiirs. Religion and education went hand in hand. In 
Colonial New England, the leaders, rather than the mass of the 
settlers, were interested in the education of the entire people; 
but class differentiation was not as yet an important phenom- 
enon. 



" Martin, Evohition of the Mass. Pvhlic School System, 52. 



[17] 



18 BULLETIN OF THE UNIMLRSITY OF WISCONSIN 



CHAPTER II 

THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION 

EDucATiON^yi, Decline 

In New Englaud during the early Colonial Period, as we have 
seen, the centers of educational advance were also the strong- 
holds of the Calvinistic theocracy. As might be expected, in 
Rhode Island where this theocracy was never enthroned, the 
early educational development was dwarfed. But with the growth 
of new settlements, pushing farther and ever farther into the 
interior, aided by the constant pressure of a new and ijrimitive 
environment, a new democratic spirit, a spirit which chafed 
Lmder the authority of religious and educated leadership, de- 
veloped and became powerful. Not only was the supremacy of 
the early New England Church threatened by this rising spirit 
of democracy with its accompanying diversity of creeds, but 
the extreme and unwise zealousness of its own ministers tended 
to produce a reaction against it. After the crusade against 
witchcraft at Salem, it has been pointed out, the authority of 
the ministers began to wane.^ Writers on the history of Chris- 
tianity in the United States record a period of religious' decline. 
"By the end of the first third of the eighteenth century, New 
England, politically, ecclesiastically, theologically, and morally, 
had come into a state of imstable equilibrium."^ 1662-1720 
"was a period of marked religious declension in all the colo- 
nies."^ In 1678, Increase Mather asserted: — "The body of the 
rising generation is a poor, perishing, unconverted, and except 
the Lord pour down his Spirit, an undone generation. Many 



^ Cobb, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, 237. 
-Bacon, A History of Ainericaii Christianity, 105. 
3 Dorchester, Christianity in the United States, 1.34. 



[18] 



C-VELTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 19 

are profane, drunkards, lascivious scoffers at the power of God- 
liness. "* The commercial depression of 1740, ''fell npon a 
generation of New Englanders whose minds no longer dwelt 
preeminently upon religious matters, but who were, on the con- 
trary, preeminently commercial in their interests."^ Neverthe- 
less, in spite of these changes in the sentiment of the people, the 
ministers remained, at least until the time of the downfall of 
the Federalist party, a powerful political factor in New Eng- 
land. 

If, as has been maintained, early Colonial education was a 
growth fostered particularly by the religious leaders, an educa- 
tional declension would be the logical result of the weakening of 
the ministerial authority. Such a phenomenon actually was ob- 
served." Many other forces contributed their quota in pro- 
ducing this result, and in delaying a revival of educational zeal 
until after the War of 1812 — over a century later. "This de- 
clension is' commonly ascribed to the w^ars with the Indians and 
the French that w^asted the blood and treasure of the colony 
[Massachusetts] ; the political and social contentions that dis- 
turbed its peace; the uncertain relations that existed between 
^Massachusetts and the Mother Country, and internal, economic, 
and social changes."" The foregoing analysis would, however, 
lay the stress directly upon the decline in religious ardor, 
and indirectly upon those forces which contributed to 
this result. The intermittent warfare which the colonies were 
engaged in down to the end of the Revolution was certainly 
sufficient to prevent much attention being paid to education, 
Avhich deals with the future rather than the immediate needs of 
a people. 

In the early Colonial period all schools were town schools. 
As the population increased and became scattered, a new social 
condition developed. The population of a town was no longer 
concentrated around one church and one school-house. As a 
result of this expansion of population, a very important changa 
took place in the management of educational affairs which 



^Quoted ihid.. 137. 

^Greene. M. L., The Drrr1ni)iiicnt of Rclir/ious Liberty in Conn., 22G. 

''' Hinsdale, Horace Mann, '.). 

- Ihid., 9. 



[19] 



20 BULLETIN OF THE UNIX^RSITY OF WISCONSIN 

modified, in no small measnre, the progress of educational de- 
velopment. At first, in order to meet the needs of all the chil- 
dren of a to'OTi the "traveling school" was resorted to. "The 
traveling school reversed the usual practice; the school went to 
the children, not the children to the school; that is, the single 
town school was kept a certain time in one corner of the town, 
then in another, and so on until the circuit had been completed, 
the periods that it spent in different localities being equal or 
unequal, as circumstances' might determine. ' '^ This soon led to 
the formation of several district schools within a given town. 
But as might be expected with a people accustomed to the town 
meeting form of government and extremely jealous of central- 
ized control, the district system of school management followed. 
This process was a gradual one; the culmination of the power 
of the school district was not reached until 1827.° This year 
"marks the utmost limit to the subdivision of American sover- 
eignty — the high water-mark of modern democracy, and the 
low Avater-mark of the IMassachusetts school system. "^*' At this 
time only two limitations were placed upon the powers of the 
district, namely, the raising and apportionment of taxes, and 
the qualification of teachers." 

The Grammar school had been, as we have seen, the distinc- 
tive and important grade of school in the early period. The 
groAvth of the district system necessarily meant the decline of 
this grade of school, because the districts, being small units, 
could not support, in the majority of cases, a good grammar 
school. At this point in our history the famous academy is 
ushered in. This is simply the visible token of the decline in 
the "free" grammar school; it grows out of the demand of the 
well-to-do classes for better educational facilities than could be 
obtained in the district school. While the district system led 
toward democracy and equality of privilege from the political 
point of view on the one hand; it tended on the other toward 
class differentiation. This latter tendency, coupled with the 



8 Hinsdale. Horace Mniin. 11. 

» Martin, The Evolution of the Mass. fichool Sif.itcm. 02. In Conneeticiit. the 
formation of "school societies" may have been a factor in the development of the 
district system. 

'» Martin. 92. 

" Ihhl., 93. 

[20] 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 21 

growth of an industrial class, led finally to the educational 
awakening which placed our educational system upon a new 
basis, and to an era w^hich demanded centralized school admin- 
istration and tax-supported free elementary schools. 

During the long period of "marking time" in educational 
affairs, which preceded the era under investigation, while many 
dissimilar forces were aiding in the disintegration of the early 
Massachusetts and Connecticut school system, one influence 
stands out prominently in opposition to the prevailing tendency, 
namely, the system of land grants for educational pur-poses. 
The presence of large quantities of land at the disposal of the 
towns, the colonial, and later the state, governments enabled 
them to subsidize the schools along the well-lmown line of least 
resistance. They could aid in the development of education 
without apparently touching the pocketbook of the tax-payer, 
"In the light of English practice respecting school support, it 
is not surprising to find the early American colonists founding 
'free schools' or 'free grammar schools,' and endowing them 
with lands. The custom was followed to some extent in all of 
the colonies', but in certain ones, namely Massachusetts, Con- 
necticut and New Hampshire, it developed steadily in the di- 
rection of the public land grant system. In many, perhaps in 
most cases, these lands, wiien granted, were of little value. But 
their value steadily increased with the general development of 
the country, and with this increase the popular interest in them 
kept pace."^- It is worthy of notice that the system of land' 
grants for educational purposes orig-inated in order to aid the 
grammar, not the elementary or common school.^^ 

The chief disintegrating forces of this long period of transi- 
tion may, therefore, be summarized as follows, although it must 
be remembered that these are not distinct, isolated, or unrelated 
influences: (a) The decline in the power of the Puritan the- 
ocracy and the increasing strength of various religious sects; 
(b) the enlargement of the sphere of settlement, and the con- 
sequent development of the district system; (c) wars, internal 
dissentions and the formation of a new government distracted 
the attention from the field of education; (d) the decrease of 



" Schafer, Tlic OiUjin of the System of Land Grants in Education, 11, 15. 
"iW(;., 23. 

[21] 



22 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

mutual interdependence among the settlers and the weakening 
of the spirit of clannishness. On the other hand, the forces 
which tended to continue our educational progress appear to be ; 
(a) an inherited belief in the religious and civic value of edu- 
cation; (b) the use of land grants for educational purposes. 

Soon' after the "War of 1812, other forces appear in the fore- 
ground which give a new impulse to educational progress. Just 
at the dawn of this period, one of the earliest spokesmen of edu- 
cational radicalism declared: — "Under our present constitution, 
or for the last forty years, the schools have no doubt been vastly 
improved. But they have most certainly, not kept up with the 
prt>gress of society in other respects. Although their absolute 
motion must be acknowledged, their relative motion has been 
for many years retrograde. And there never was a time, since 
the settlement of the country, when the common schools were 
farther in the rear of the improvements of the age in almost 
everything else affecting our condition and happiness than they 
are at the present moment."^* 

The Situation at the Opening of the Period (1820-1850) 

"VYhat then were the educational conditions in the different 
states at the opening of the period under consideration? The 
Constitution of Massachusetts in 1780 stated that it 'was the duty 
of "legislatures and magistrates," to cherish the interests of 
literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them: especially 
the university at Cambridge, public schools, and "grammar 
schools in the town. ' ' The school law of 1789 was still in force 
•in 1820. This law is conceded to be a step backward in com- 
parison with previous laws.'^ By this act the district system 
was legalized. The toAvns were still required to maintain schools, 
but the minimum length of the school year was only six months. 
Towns of one hundred and fifty families or more were re(| aired 
to support a grammar school. Penalties were provided in case 
of neglect, by a town, to support schools. For example, a town 
of fifty families was fined fifty pounds for such neglect.^''' One 



iiCartor, .T. C, The Schools o' Mass. ?» 1S20 in Old flonth Leaflet. No. \^'t, '.i. 
''■ Dexter, History of Edueation in the United (States. 80. 
^« Barnard's Journal of Education (1857). 4:057-710. 

[22] 



C.mLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 23 

important clause of this Act reads thus: — "Be it enacted hy the 
authority aforesaid, That all plantations which shall be taxed to 
the support of the government, and all parishes and precincts, 
are hereby authorized and empowered, at their annual meeting 
in ]March or April to vote and raise such sums of money upon 
the polls and ratable estates of their respective inhabitants for 
the support and maintenance of a schoolmaster to teach their 
children and youth to read, write, and cipher as they shall judge 
expedient, to be assessed in due proportion and to be collected 
in like manner with the public taxes. "^' After speaking of the 
educational laws of this state, Winterbotham remarks: — "These 
laws respecting schools are not so well regarded in many parts 
of the state, as the wise purposes which they were intended to 
answer, and the happiness of the people require. "^^ At the 
opening of our period there Avere no public schools where chil- 
dren could prepare for the grammar schools. In 1817, a sub- 
committee of the School Committee of Boston was appointed to 
consider the desirability of public primary schools. The sub- 
committee reported that "for children under the age of seven 
years', it is true, no schools are maintained at public expense." 
But it was asserted, this class of children was not neglected; 
they were cared for in a series of small private schools. Al- 
though the tuition acted as a tax upon the parents, it was not 
considered to be burdensome or inequitable. The sub-committee 
also emphasized the importance of home training for very young 
children. In view of the heavy taxation already levied for pub- 
lic schools, it was urged that the establishment of free primary 
schools for children under seven years of age was not "expe- 
dient."^'' At the opening of the period of educational revival, 
in Massachusetts', the state whose educational history is proudly 
pointed to by students of history, elementary education, al- 
though legally a part of the duty of the public schools, actually 
devolved, in the main, upon private schools. 



■'Full text of the law jxiven in Report of CrunviL^xioiicr of Eilucaiion (1S92-3), 
1234-37. Also. The Perpetual Laws of Mass. (1801), 2:39-44. 

^^ All Historical, Gco<jrai)ltical and Philosophical View of the U. S. (1795'), 
2:177. 

^» Report signed by Chas. Bullfinch. Chairman, was printed in full in the Ka- 
tional Intelligencer, November 29. 1S17. 1. Also, see Wightman, Annals of the 
frimary Schools of Boston: and Hinsdale, Horace Mann. 32, 

[23] 



24 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

Until 1798, Connecticut towns were required to maintain 
schools, supported, in a three-fold manner, by a state fund, local 
taxation and tuition. According to the provision of laws enacted 
in 1795 and 1798, the control of the schools passed into the hands 
of local "school societies." /Local taxation was made optional. 
As a consequence the schools, as a rule, only remained open long 
enough to expend the money granted out of the general fund, 
but no longer.-° New Hampshire, in 1719, enacted the Mass- 
achusetts school law of 1647 ; and, in 1721, provided that a fine 
be imposed upon the selectmen personally, if they neglected to 
maintain a grammar school as provided by law.-^ Nevertheless, 
this was not well enforced.-- In 1748, for example, the town of 
Chester voted "that the town defend and secure the selectmen 
from any damage they may come to for not providing a Gram- 
mar school."-^ Governor Wentworth in his message in 1771 
declared that "nine-tenths of your toAvns are wholly without 
teachers or having vagrant teachers . . . worse than none 
. . . unlmo'vvn in principle and deplorably illiterate."-^ 

Among the New^ England States, Ehode Island has an edu- 
cational history which is peculiarly her own.-^ She did not 
enact a common school law until the year 1800; and this was 
not enforced/ but instead was repealed three years later. In 
1796, Samuel Slater "established at Pawtucket a Sunday school 
at which was taught the rudiments of knowledge. His efforts 
were supplemented by those of John Howland at Providence, 
who as a barber w^as a member of the Association of Mechanics 
and Manufacturers, a society organized in 1789. By the energy 
of Howland the General Assembly in 1800 was led to pass an 
act creating free schools. "-° "Not imtil 1828 was such a law 



-° Barnard's, .Journal of Educoiion (IS.jT), 4:657-710. 

21 Robinson, M. H., History of Taxation in 2iew Hampshire in American Eco- 
nomic Association Puhlicntions, 3d series (1902), 3: 17S. Primary autliority, 
Laics of N. H. (172G), 133, 100. 

-^Ihid., 178. 

=» Chase, History of Chester, 27S. Quoted by Robinson. See also Secomb, His- 
tory of Amherst, 319. 

=* Quoted by Robinson, 179, from N. H. Provincial papers, 7: 287. 

2»'ine unique agricultural features of Rhode Island are well described in a 
monograpn : Channing, Edw., The Narrayansett Planters in Johns Hopkins Univ. 
Studies. 4. The methods employed in agriculture in Rhode Island closely re- 
sembled those of the plantation system in the South. 

=« Richman, I. B., Rhode Island, 279. 

[24] 



C-VELTOX — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 25 

put upon the statute books that remained there,"-'' and this law 
Avas practically a dead letter, outside of Providence, until after 
the extension of the suffrage in the decade of the forties. ' ' The 
literature of this state [Rhode Island in 1795] is confined prin- 
cipally to the towns of Newport and Providence. . . . The 
bulk of the inhabitants, in other parts of the State, are involved 
in greater ignorance, perhaps, than in most other parts of New 
England. "=« 

In the state of New York, "the first state legislation regarding 
schools seems to have been made in 1786, when it was ordered 
that unappropriated lands' within the state should be laid out in 
townships ten miles square, and that in each of them one section 
should be reserved for the 'gospel and schools' and one 'for 
promoting literature.' Special appropriations Avere also made 
to help academies."-^ Nine years later^a general law was passed 
appropriating one hundred thousand dollars annually for five 
years. This money was paid directly out of the State Treasury. / 
The law Avas not reenacted, howcA^er, at the expiration of the 
five years. As late as 1806 there Avere none save parochial and 
priA'ate schools in the city of Ncav York, and the public school 
society Avas then formed to care for the education of a large 
number of children already outside the educational charge of 
the A'arious religious sects."*' This was a priA'ate society com- 
posed of influential citizens. It controlled the public schools of 
the city of Ncav York for nearly half a century. The significant 
fact is that this society was originally formed to supplement 
the w^ork of religious organizations./ 

The Constitution (1790) of Pennsyh^ania contained the follow- 
ing section : — ' ' The legislature shall as soon as couA^eniently may 
be, provide for the establishment of schools' throughout the state 
in such manner that the poor may be taught gratis. The arts 
and sciences shall be promoted, in one or more seminaries of 
learning." In 1802 this section Avas carried into effect by en- 
acting a laAV entitled, "An act to provide the education of the 
poor gratis." This laAv, strengthened in 1804 and 1809 re- 



-' j:iinsdale. Horcc Maim, 25. 

2s Winterbotham, 2 : 237. 

-» Dexter, Hisioiy of Education in the United States, 77. 

5» Report of Commissioner of Education (1893-94), 698. 

[25] 



26 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

mained in force for over thirty years. But the attempt to pro- 
vide free schooling for the poor was not successful. "Out of 
the failure to educate the poor as a class arose the idea of schools 
free to all."^^ Much of the work of education in this state de- 
volved upon religious societies, and other private schools; the 
poor children were often sent to these schools at public expense. 
"Almost every religious society have one or more schools under 
their immediate direction, for the education of their own youth 
of both sexes, as well of the rich, who are able to pay, as of the 
poor, who are taught and provided with bool« and stationery 
gratis."^- The foUoA^dng newspaper account of a Shaker school 
is interesting in this connection. "The Shakers are now regu- 
larly organized into a school district by themselves under the 
sanction of the law. . . . We hazard nothing in the assertion, 
that there is not in the county, not perhaps in the state, a school, 
where children from the age of four to nine, would compare to 
those of the Shakers, in readiness of reading prose, rhyme, or 
blank verse, or dn accuracy of spelling, punctuation and em- 
phasis."'" 

In New Jei"sey, Delaware and jMaryland at the opening of the 
period of educational revival, conditions as to education were 
similar to those already portrayed in Pennsylvania. In 1820, 
New Jersey passed an act authorizing townships to raise money 
for the education of the poor. Delaware, in 1817. appropriated . 
one thousaiid dollars for each county for the instruction of poor 
children; but these "pauper schools" did not prosper.'* In 
Maryland many benevolent societies were organized to provide 
instruction for the indigent. The following is an extract from 
the Annual Report of the Male Free School of Baltimore. "It 
is truly gratifying to the trustees to witness the increasing in- 
terest, taken in the education of the poor, — to see the talents, 
the zeal and the means now employed to give instruction to the 
indigent youth." "To the liberality of the citizens of Balti- 



'1 Jenkins, Pe7insijU-ania, Colonial and Federal, 3: 31. 
"-VVintcrhothavi (179.">», 14:423. 

^^ Piftsflchl Sun, May 10, 1822. Copied in Baltimore Moniinu Chronicle, May 
25. 1822. 

=" Dexter, 59. 



[26] 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 27 

more, tli^^y [poor boys] are indebted for the ample means of in- 
struction which they now enjoy, . . . "^^ 

The famous ordinance of 1787 consecrated the Northwest to 
freedom, and proclaimed that "religion, morality, and knowl- 
edge, being essential to good government, schools, and the means 
of education, should forever be encouraged." The first Consti- 
tution of Ohio, the first state to be carved out of the Northwest 
Territory% contained the following clause: — "schools and the 
means of instruction should be forever encouraged by legislative 
pro\asion, not inconsistent with the right of conscience." The 
first general school law was not passed until 1821, nearly a score 
of years,' later; and this was unsuccessful. Previous to this law, 
education in Ohio was purely a private matter. JMany schools 
were organized by means of private subscription; many private 
houses were utilized as sehoolhouses.''"'' "Schools worthy of re- 
membrance, between 1802 and 1820 were known only in most 
enterprising towns'."'" The slow development of public educa- 
tion is made evident by the following quotation. "In the year 
1833, tiiere were twenty-four private schools in the city [Cin- 
cinnati] , with thirty-eight teachers and one thousand two hun- 
dred and thirty pupils, and in the public schools but twenty-one 
teachers and two thousand pupils. "^^. At the beginning of our 
period. Ohio, Indiana. Illinois, iMichigan, and Wisconsin, were 
still frontier states. Education was necessarily much neglected; 
but the influential settlers, as a rule, adhered to the early New 
England viiew as to the necessity and value of univereal educa- 
tion. In the South, excepting South Carolina, prior to 1820 
there was practically no provision made in any .state for public 
education. 

In New England, excepting Rhode Island, at the beginning 
of our period, the principle of free tax-supported schools for all 
was, in theory, accepted. Elsewhere free public elementary 
educatiion was only for the poor. But even in New England the 
free schools were much less efficient than private ones. Kev. 
Edward Everett Hale in A New England Boyhood said that 



'■''■ Baltimore Morning Chronicle, December 10. 1822. 
^0 Life and Times of Ephriam Cutler, 49. 88, 172. 
^' liarnanVx Journal of Education (1850). 0:82. 
^ Venable, Ijiterary Culture in the Ohio Valleii, 421. 

[27] 



28 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

there was no thought of sending him to a public sch-ool, — too 
poor in eharacter.^^ The difference between New England and 
other sections was in reality only one of degree. However, this 
difference changed slightly the character of the struggle during 
the period of educational revival. In New England, the demand 
was nominally for supervision ; but supervision signified better 
free tax-supported schools, it stood for a leveling of the invidious 
distinctions between public and private schools'. In New York 
and Pennsylvania, particularly in the latter, on the other hand, 
the issue was clear-cut; it was definitely and unmistakably 
"free" versus "pauper" schools. 



2' Hinsdale, Horace Mann, 30, foot note. 



[28] 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 29 



CHAPTER III 



FUNDAMENTAL INFLUENCES 

The foregoing chapters have given us a view of the conditions 
at and preceding the opening of this important period in our 
educational and industrial history. We have before us the 
traditional and inherited beliefs and tendencies in regard to 
education. The attention must now be directed to the changes, 
social and industrial, which occurred during the period. This 
epoch (1820-1850) is one of rapid transformation from house- 
hold industry to the factory system ; it is the era of the extension 
of the suffrage, of the abolition of imprisonment for debt, of 
various humanitarian movements from religious revivals to the 
■establishment of communistic settlements, from temperance re- 
form to the abolition of slavery. During this period the growth 
of the cities was rapid, an important labor movement arose, and 
the theory of protection received recognition from Congress. 
Brief consideration will now be given to various changes, in- 
dustrial, social and political which appreciably influenced the 
development of the public school system. 

The Growth of Population and op Manufacture 

The year 1790 may be selected as the date of the birth of the 
factory system in this countrj'. The first factory within the 
borders of the United States was erected in Beverly, Massachu- 
setts, in 1787. Thi.s' venture Avas unsuccessful.^ From this time 
until the end of the period under consideration, there was a 
gradual transfer of industry from the household or the small 
workshop to the factory. With the development of the factoiy 



1 Trie Factorv ffustcm of the U. .S'. iu CaifiKS RcporiS. 1880. Manufaciiircs. 2 .G- 

[29] 



30 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

system came the concentration of industry in the towns, more 
minute diviision of labor, and rapid increase in the production 
of manufactured articles'. The percentage of population living 
in towns and working in manufacture and trades increased at a. 
rapid rate. The Embargo Act and the War of 1812 caiLsed 
capital to shift from commerce to manufacture, particularly in 
New England. During this period, importation was greatly 
reduced ; and this fact tended, in a measure, to stimulate inven- 
tion and home manufacture. "At all events, we know that the 
embargo and the war did cause the introduction of numerous 
manufactures on a larger scale than ever before; and that those 
Avho engaged in the business had a natural monopoly."- But 
Avhile the manufacturing interests were benefited, the shipping 
interests were seriously injured ; and shipping regulations adopted 
by other nations subsequent to the war further increased their 
distress. The business of ship-building came to a standstill ; and 
many ships lay idle in port.'' 

Immediately after the War of 1S12, and the close of the Euro- 
pean straggle with Napoleon, this county was flooded with for- 
eign manufactured goods. The infant industries, for such they 
might then justly be termed, having been artifically stimulated 
by the restrictions laid, in the immediately preceding years, by 
the embargo act and the conditions of war, were unable to meet 
the excessive competition ; and an era of hard times set in,, 
which continued until after 1820. 

iQ'he entire period (1820-1850) is characterized by the rapid 
gro-wiih of urban population, the development of manufacture, 
and a multiplicity of important inventions. The population of 
Massachusetts increased during the two decades, 1800-1820, 
nearly 2-1 per cent. ; during 1820-1840, over 40 per cent. ; during 
1830-1850, nearly 60 per cent. ; but during the same periods the 
increase in the population of the city of Boston was approxi- 
mately 73, 115, and 123 per cent, respectively.* Lowell, which 



- Stanwood, Amoiciin Tariff Coiitrorcrsics. 1: ll!8. 

3 Stanwood, 1: 104; and yilcs' Rcfjistcr, 11: .374. 

Mil 1830. the population of Boston was 61.392; rrovidence 16,833; New York 
Cffy, 202,589; Philadelphia (city and county), 161,427; Pittsburg and Allegheny. 
18,000 ; Cincinnati, 24.831. 

[30] 



CAELTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 31 

had no existence in 1820, boasted of a population of over 20,000 
in 1840; New Bedford increased from 3,947 to 12,087 during 
the same space of time. "Lowell is a mere manufacturing vil- 
lage, and no place, we believe, has ever increased from manu- 
factures alone, with greater rapidity, or with the same popula- 
tion, has had an equal number of operatives. In 1830, its pop- 
ulation was 6,500 and in December 1833, it was estimated at 
15,000; and more than one-third of these were employed in cot- 
ton establishments."^ In 1790 less than one-twentieth part of 
the total population of ^Massachusetts lived within the limits of 
city of Boston; in 1820, about one-twelfth part, and in 1840, 
about one-eighth part Avere inhabitants of that city. "Within 
ten miles of Boston there is now (1846) one quarter part of the 
population of the state, amounting to more than 200,000, chiefly 
dependent upon Boston as the center of business; in 1790 
the number was less than a ninth part of the whole. '"^ Chick- 
ering shows that 213 towns chiefly agricultural, situated in INIass- 
achusetts, increased only 8.5 per cent, from 1820 to 1840, 
while 88 manufacturing towns increased 79.62 per cent.^ Dur- 
ing the score of years from 1820 to 1840, the population of 
Rhode Island increased approximately 31 per cent., that of the 
city of Providence nearly 100 per cent. ; in New York State the 
increase was nearly 77 per cent., while in the city of New York 
the percentage was about 153 per cent.; in Pennsylvania the 
increase was over 64 per cent., and that of Philadelphia over 
72 per cent.® 

In the three New England States of Massachusetts, Rhode 
Island and Connecticut during the period from 1820-1840, the 
number of persons engaged in agriculture increased approxi- 
mately one-fourth; those engaged in commerce decreased about 
one-third; and those engaged in manufacture and trades in- 
creased nearlv two and one-half times." Owing to inaccura- 



M'itkin. Thos.. .1 Statistical Vicic of the Cnmmcrcc of the U. S., (1835), .j2:J 

" Chickerlng, On Population and Immiijration, li)9. 

■ IbU., 49. 

^ Cenaust Reports: also Tucker, I'royrcss of the V. »S'. 

*IUd., Tucker, 135-36. 

[31] 



32 BULLETIN OF THE UNI\TERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

cies and to different classifications in the two census reports 
these figures can only be considered approximate ; but they show 
clearly the drift toward manufacture. In 1840, according to 
the census reports in jMassaehusetts, the number of persons en- 
gaged in agriculture was 87,837, in commerce, 8,063, in manu- 
facture and trades, 85,176; in New York. 455,954, 28,468, and 
173,193 respectively; in Ohio, 207,533, 15,338 and 105,883 re- 
spectively. The number of cotton factories in the United States 
increased from 801 in 1831, to 1,240 in 1840. In 1831, the num- 
ber of persons' employed in cotton manufacture in JMassaehusetts 
was 13,343, and in 1850, 28,730; in Rhode Island, 8,500 and 
10,875 respectively." 

The immigration into the United States during the decade, 
1820-1830, was 143,439; during the next decade, 599,125, and 
during the period 1840-1850. it increased to 1,713,251. From 
1830 to 1837 the immigration increased nearly three and one- 
half times." A census of the city of Boston taken in 1845 
stated that 37,289, or 32.6 per cent, of a total population of 
114,366 consisted of foreigners and their children. The state 
Census of New York (1845) found that more than one-eighth of 
the Whole population were of foreign birth, and more than one- 
third of the inhabitants of New York City were foreign born.^- 
The character of the population was rapidly changing. ]\Iany 
foreign immigrants were finding homes in the North Atlantic 
States, and many of the home stock were migrating westward. 

Among the important inventions and innovations of this 
period of thirty years are many which practically revolutionized 
industrial methods, for example, the general introduction of the 
power loom, the use of the hot-air blast in iron smelting, the in- 
troduction of anthracite coal into the same industry, the in- 
ventions of the mower, the reaper, the sewing machine and the 
friction match, the introduction of the steam printing press, the 



^0 The Factorii Snalon of ihc U. 8. in Ccii><us Reports, ISSO, Manufdctures, 8 
ct scq. 

^^Immigration inio the U. S. from 1820 to 1903, (U. S. Treasury Dep't.), 4336, 
4339. 

'- Clilckering, Ou Voitulaiion and ImmUiration. 35. Article on foreign immi- 
gration. 

[32] 



CAELTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 33 

use of the screw propeller on steam boats,', and the invention of 
the steam hammer for steel working. Methods of transporta- 
tion and commmiication changed even more completely than did 
those employed in manufacture. The Erie Canal was completed 
in 1825. The succeeding ten or fifteen year's saw a rapid devel- 
opment of canal systems in the Northern States'. The use of 
steamboats which began before the opening of this period, in- 
creased at a rapid pace. But more important was the develop- 
ment of the railroad system. The first steam railroad, three 
miles in length, was built in 1826. In 18-40 the mileage of the 
steam railroads' of the United States Avas 2,640 miles; in 1850, 
9,021 miles. Locomotive construction in the United States be- 
gan about 1830. The fir'st telegraph line was constructed in 
1844. 

The Extension of the Suffrage 

The extension of the privilege of casting the ballot', which was 
an interesting and important phenomenon of the first half of the 
nineteenth century, is closely connected with the educational 
movements of the times. Both are parts of the democratic move- 
ment which aimed at benefiting the masses ; the extension of the 
suffrage enabled the workers congregated in the cities, to become 
important factors in the political arena, thus giA^ng their de- 
mands a potency which otherwise would have been lacking. 
Four influences seem to be chiefly responsible for the new suf- 
frage enactments : — The belief in the revolutionary^ dogmas of 
natural right and of the equality of men, Avhich had been 
strengthened by the impulse received from the French Revo- 
lution ; the intense democratic spirit fostered by the frontier ; the 
strength of the newly formed working classes living in the rap- 
idly growing towns and cities; and the competition of political 
parties for voters. ^^ 

Aristocracy, royalty and inequality were feared because of 



'^ Blackmar, F. W.. Tlir Ch(nii<tu<iu<in. -2: ?A. 

3 [33] 



3-1 BULLETIN OP THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

past experience. Washington, Adams and Hamilton were op- 
posed because of their alleged aristocratic tendencies. Jeffer- 
son represented, to a degree, a reaction. Jackson, however, was' 
the first representative of the frontier. He broke the long line 
of New York and Virginia men who represented an aristoc- 
racy of birth and training. Jackson stood for the reaction 
against trained leadership. This democratic movement which 
culminated in the election of Jackson had been gathering 
strength for years; it united the farmer of the West and the 
working population in the cities. 

"The frontier states that came into the Union in the first 
quarter of a century of its existence came in with democratic 
suffrage provisions, and had reactive effects of the highest im- 
portance upon the older states whose people Avere being attracted 
there. An extension of the suffrage became essential. It was 
w^estern New York that forced an extension of the suffrage in 
the constitutional convention of that state in 1821; and it was 
western Virginia that compelled the tide-water region to put a 
more liberal suffrage provision in the constitution framed in 
1830, and to give the frontier region a more nearly proportional 
representation with the tide-water aristocracy."^* "Of all the 
states west of the mountains, she [Tennessee] was the only one 
that adopted in all their vigor the old restrictions on the sub- 
ject." [Property and religious qualifications for voting and 
office holding.] ^^ But with the growth of the cities and towns, 
and the formation of a considerable wage-earning population, 
we find, in the towns and cities, an important element demand- 
ing an extension of the suff'rage. In Rhode Island, in 1824, 
a vote was taken on the question of the adoption of a constitu- 
tion. Providence was the stronghold of those favoring the 
adoption. "After 1825 the agitation was wholly in the hands 
of the suffragists;" and after 1829 it became very important.^® 
The proposed constitution of the "legal" convention of 1842 in 



"Turner. F. J., American Historical Assc-c. Reports, (1893), 222. 
"McMaster, J. B., Acquisition of Political Social and Industrial Bights, 48. 
1" Mowry, The Dorr War, 35 ; also McMaster, ibid. 

[34] 



C.mLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 35 

Rhode Island was rejected chiefly by the vote of Providence. 
The following is the summary of the vote:^^ 

For. Against. 

rnnidcnrc connty 2, .'70 i5,;>43 

Xfwpoit cduiit V ." 1 ,45n 516 

Kent .■oniitv 78-t 838 

P.rist.il county 08:5 238 

Wnsliinuton county 1,181 813 

Total 6,677 7,748 

The New York Jounuil of Commerce stated "that the consti- 
tution thus rejected is a different thing from that which is 
called the free suffrage constitution which was the result of a 
popular movement, and sustained by most of those who opposed 
the constitution thus rejected. "^^ In Ehode Island the cities 
and the working classes fathered the suffrage movement which, 
in other states was forced by the frontier. 

Professor Blackmar makes the following statement regarding 
the removal of the religious tests relating to the exercise of the 
suffrage. "From this time on, [1691] the freehold test became- 
more general until at the beginning of the eighteenth century 
it was nearly universal in practice in the colonies'. The relig- 
ious test became less exacting in many instances, and finally 
broke down altogether on account of the great diversity of relig- 
ious beliefs of the new immigrants, rendering it impossible to 
maintain a popular government under a religious test."^" This, 
argument, if tenable, ought also to account for the removal of 
the property qualifications in the fii-st half of the nineteenth 
century. During this period class differentiation increased, and 
the opposition between rural and urban districts began to be 
clearly discernable. Social antagonism shifted from the relig- 
ious to the economic point of view. 

The West — the frontier — did much to force more liberal suf- 
frage provisions ; and the ballot in the hands of the wage-earners 
was an important factor in making tax-supported schools an 
actuality. The latter statement is supported by these facts 
which will be considered later: (a) "Workingmen 's conven- 



■■2V(7es' Register, April, 2, 1842, '{2: 80. 
i« Quoted, ibiiL, «a: 8.J. 
^° ClinutduijiKin. ii'2t 29. 

[35] 



36 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

tions and parties during this period, favored tax-supported 
schooLs; (b) the cities rather than the rural districts supported 
the movement. The following testimony from English experi- 
ence is pertinent. "If factory regulation had been attempted, 
though only in a piece-meal way, sometime before we had a dem- 
ocratic house of commons, the same can not be said of educa- 
tional law. It was the parliament elected by a more popular suf- 
frage in 1868 that passed, as we Imow. the first great educational 
act. That act introduced compulsory schooling."-'' Fred- 
erick Jaclvson — a representative labor leader, — voiced a similar 
sentiment from the view point of the workingmen when he de- 
clared in January, 1867: — "Nothing will force the governing 
classes to recognize the workingmen 's claim and judge them 
fairly, nntil they find them wresting into their own hands real 
political power. ' '-^ 

The Humanitarian ^Movement* 

Two movements now attract our attention: the humanitar'an 
and the labor movement of the period under consideration. It 
is not for us in this study to consider these important social 
movements in detail; but they are so inextricably connected and 
interwoven with the educational advance of the period that we 
mii&t note the sources of these two movements, and notice the 
causes which led to their decline or dilution. After the termi- 
nation of the War of 1812 came a period of anxiety and distress 
for the artificially stimulated manufacturing industries which 
the War and the Embargo Act had fostered. This period ter- 
minated in the crisis of 1819. With the revival of industries, 
beginning about 1822 and becoming quite apparent in 1825, 
came the rapid growth of town population, the stimulation of 
immigration ; and a new set of industrial and social problems 
were placed before the people of this young republic, particu- 



-0 Green, T. 11.. Wo]ks. .'5: S.*^!). 

-1 Quoted l)y .T. B. Andrews, in The Commons, June, 190.5, 840. 
* See article by the writer in The International Journal of Ethics, October, 
190G. 



[36] 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 37 

larly those residing in the northern and eastern states. The pecu- 
liar evils of modern urban life became apparent; but experience 
^'ained from rural life afforded no adequate guide as to the 
proper and etfective methods of coping >witli these new evils. 
Idle and uneducated children appeared upon the streets' of the 
cities and towns, on the one hand ; and on the other, the problem 
of child and woman labor in factories or in intensive domestic 
industry, pressed for solution. The rush into the towns, the 
consequent change from outdoor and active, to indoor and com- 
paratively sedentary life, and the greater opportunity for associa- 
tion with others, made more noticeable, if it did not actually in- 
crease, the evils of intemperance. Pauperism and crime be- 
came crying evils. Societies for the prevention of crime, for 
the aid of the poor, and for other benevolent purposes, sprang 
as by magic into existence. 

As early as 1813. a "Society for the Suppression of Intemper- ^ 
ance" was formed in Massachusetts. The " Penusylvania So- 
ciety for the Promotion of Public Economy" was founded in 
1817 ; and a similar society :was organized in the same year in 
New York City. Juvenile crime became especially noticeable 
in 1820 and 1821. The American Temperance Society was or- 
ganized in 1826.'-' Public meetings were called to consider 
measures to better social conditions. ' ' From such earnest efforts 
to prevent pauperism and crime there sprang most naturally a 
di.scussion and revision of the means then employed to reform 
criminals and lessen the repetition of crime, in short, of criminal 
codes and penitentiary .systems in use in the States."'^ The 
])i'evalence of juvenile crime turned attention toward the matter 
of education. The long continued hard times accentuated the 
evils of the factory town and the industrial city, and produced 
a fertile soil out of which sprang public interest in the reforma- 
tion of morals, and the humanitarian movement.-* 

Several quotations, taken chieHy from contemporary writers 
may make the picture clearer. In 1819, it was calculated that the 

--McMaster, 4; eh. ;!T ; also lliyf. iif X. Anirrica, IS: 4:>C.. El. by Lee. 
-' MeMaster. 4: .-,4(i. 
■-' IbiiL, 4: ell. ;{7. 

[371 



38 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

number of persons in Pittsburg thrown out of work by the de- 
pression from 1816-1819. was 1,288; in Philadelphia, in thirty 
branches, 7,288. In Rhode Island alone, in the cotton industry, 
the number employed was' diminished, 1816-1819, by 11.337.-^ 
In 1826, Rev. Joseph Tuckerman resigned his pastorate in Bos- 
ton, and devoted himself to the interests of the poor. "He 
found the streets tilled with idle children, large families occupy- 
ing the damp and dirty cellars of Broad and Sea streets, gradu- 
ating thence to the hospitals and almshouses. Indefatigably 
visiting from house to house, giving practical counsel, apprentic- 
ing boys, procuring employment for adults, starting an infant 
school, attending the courts, the whole problem of poverty, ignor- 
ance and vice now absorbed him, heart and head."-*' In 1833, 
it was reported that 6,069 criminals and vagrants were com- 
mitted to local prisons in New York City; and the number of 
public paupers was estimated to be 24,326. — making a total of 
30,395, or about one-eighth of the total population of that city. 
The amount of public money needed for the support of these 
cla.sses of the population was about $300,000. The number of 
dramshops in the city of New York in the year 1833, was ap- 
proximately 3,000.-' 

\ The following statistics, representing the total for the states 
of Virginia, jMaryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, 
New York and the New England states, give an idea of the 
amount of woman and child labor in the cotton industry during 
the opening years of the decade 1830-1840: Males employed, 
23,301; females, 39,178; children (under 12 years of age), 
5,121.-^ Ji In the cotton mills of the Union Manufacturing Com- 
pany of INIaryland, in 1822, there were employed 120 girls, 58 
boys (7-19 years of age), and 6 men.-" Mr. Carey published a 
pamphlet in which he stated "that there are in the four North- 
em cities, probably from 18,000 to 20,000 women who, if con-. 



^- Fraul-Uii G(i::cite. February 12. 1821. 

-'■Tiffany, Chas. Francis Barnard, His Lif( and Wnrlc. 14. 

2" Quoted from N. Y. Ohscrrcr. liy Amcr. [lailji Adrcriiscr, February 11, 1835. 

-« Boston, (Md.) Rcpnliiican Star. April :'., 18.12. 

^^Ihid., December 10, 1822. 

[381 



Cx^LTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 39 

stantly employed for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four, can- 
not, on an average, earn more than $1.25 per week. "^° A cor- 
respondent to Niles' Register in 1816, makes a cold blooded cal- 
culation as to the additional amount of wealth which might ac- 
crue to the United States, if children, not now employed, could 
be placed in the mills and factories of this' country. Such a 
step, it was argued, would benefit commerce and agriculture as 
well as manufacture.^^ 

This interesting phenomenon, known as humanitarianism, was 
a product of the social and economic change and unrest of the 
period.^- Certain educated leaders and literary men are found 
advocating better conditions for workingmen, and presenting 
high ideals to the American people. The prominent humani- 
tarian ajid educational leaders of the period, such as Emei'son, 
Thoreau, James G. Carter, Geo. Ripley, J. F. Clarke, Wm. E. 
Channing, Horace Mann, Henry Barnard, Robert Rantoul, Jr., 
0. E. Brownson, Theodore Parker, Samuel Lewis and F. H. 
Hedge, came chiefly from old New England stock; they were 
sons of ministers, farmers and merchants, and they were nearly 
all college bred.^^ But they Avere only remotely connected with 
the great industrial changes which had been sweeping over New 
England. These men Avere representatives of a class in the 
community which was losing its' grip upon social and political 
authority. As one writer states, "a feeling was abroad that all 
things must be new in the new world. "^* This feeling was in 
reality produced because the ground was being cut out from 



^"Xiles' Register, 38: 141. 

"' Ihid., 11: 86 

'= Humanitarianism. as it manifested itself in the United States at tliis time, 
is l>.v no means, an isolated and unique plienomenon. It seems to arise in every 
complex society in a period of acute social antagonism when the lower classes 
are strugsling for better conditions. Prof. Dunning observes that it is a 
"familiar phenomenon" to find radical views based upon reactionary institutions. 
(Political Theories from Luther to Montesquieu, 77-78). The French Revolution 
and the fall of Japanese feudalism present to the student of history two very 
striking climaxes of humanitarian movements. In these two instances the con- 
trolling classes seem to have become enthused with the spirit of self-sacrifice, 
mixed with fear. 

^^ See Appendix II, for short biographical sketches of these men. 

" Frothingham, Transcendentalism in Xcv England, lOG. 



[39] 



40 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

under the very class which had hitherto molded the ideals and 
directed learning of New England. Another student of this period 
looking at this phenomenon from an entirely different point of 
^aew makes the follo'vving statement: "The commercial classes 
of New England robbed of their functions as a ruling class, 
while still retaining a sufficient wealth to maintain them were 
dying out in a blaze of intellectual fireworks. ' '^" This produced 
the transcendental movement. — a branch of the more inclusive 
humanitarian movement. 

Let us, however, examine a little closer into this humanitar- 
ian movement which plays such an important role in the educa- 
tional progress of the period. Why should its leaders turn to- 
ward measures for the improvement of the workingmen? As 
Nieboer has pointed out, in slave countries a slave is personal 
property, and the slave is held by the master or employer by 
means of personal compulsion. On the other hand, in countries 
where modern industrial system has developed and laborers are 
plentiful, the workers are obliged to seek employment through 
impersonal compulsion. At one end of the chain is the slave 
economy where the owner has a direct personal interest in the 
slave or worker; at the other end is the modem factory owner 
with no direct personal interest in his hired workmen. ^"^ Be- 
tween these two extremes stand serfdom and the domestic system 
of industry wdth its peculiar and intimate relations between ap- 
prentices, journeymen and masters. New England witnesse.d, 
at the beginning of our period, a rapid destruction of the crude 
and unsystematic forms of the domestic system of industry, and 
the adoption of the factory system, or of a more intensive and 
systematic form of domestic industry. Contemporaneous with 
this evolution came necessarily and inevitably a considerable 
modification in the relations existing between employers and 
employees. The new class of employers was not connected to 
employees by any customary or intimate relations. Now, the 
class of men from which came the humanitarian leaders was, as 



^ Simons, A. M... Class Struggles in America, 22. 

2" Nieboer, Slavery as an Industrial Siistcm, 419 et seq. 

[40] 



aUlLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 41 

has been noted, intimately connected with the other classes of the 
eommunity. These men were still strongly inflnenced by the 
ideals and customs as to the treatment and care of workers, 
which prevailed under the old form of the domestic system. 
The influence of cu&tom here as elsewhere in the economic world 
was such as to soften the rigor of the competitive system.'" At 
this particular time, custom stood for better treatment of the 
working classes ; it urged the necessity of a paternalistic atti- 
tude on the part of the employers' toward employees. The hu- 
manitarian leaders were not directly influenced by the economic 
motives which so rapidly changed the point of view of the man- 
ufacturing interests ; and it must not be forgotten that the roots 
of this movement were nourished in the soil of eighteenth cen- 
tury idealism.^® 

The humanitarian leaders wished to continue the old semi-pat- 
ernalistic method of domestic economy into modern industrial 
and city life. They saw the existing evils of child and woman 
labor, pauperism, juvenile crime, intemperance and unemploy- 
ment ; they were strongly impressed by the disintegrating ef- 
fects, upon the family, of crowded city and town life; and they 
magnified and glorified the desirable features of the earlier form 
of domestic industry with its intimate personal relations between 
workers and employers. The hurry and bustle of business and the 
keenness of the race for profits offended and shocked them ; and 
no golden stream 'was finding its way into their pockets to obscure 
their vision of conditions, pasfan.d present. The humanitarian 
leaders saw a new class of men rising to control not merely the 
wealth, but the political and social afiiairs, of the state and 
nation. They were animated by very diff^erent ideals and 
motives from those which appealed to this new economic and 
social class. The two classes were instinctively antagonistic; 
and the humanitarians struggled against that which seemed to 
them to be evil. These men more or less uncon.sciously joined 



^" Webb. Indiistria} Dcmocracu, — s GO.j et srij. 

^* "The individuars conscience is apt to be the mirror of the particular ouviron- 
ment in which he has jri'own up : and even his revolt against existing institutions 
bears traces of its unavoidable influence." Ritchie. Xatiiivl Rights, 85. 

[411 



42 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

hands Avith the new-born labor movement. These two dissim- 
ilar forces united in aiding in the educational advance toward 
tax-supported schools. Educational progress was most marked 
in the cities' where these two forces developed their greatest 
strength. ^^ 



The Labor Movement 

In this study, it is not wise to enter into an intensive consid- 
eration of the labor movement which waxed and waned during 
the period which we are examining. Its inception was, of course, 
the natural, or rather the inevitable, result of the aggregation 
of workers in towns and factories. "Organized labor is labor 
in its normal condition."*" Four phases of this movement may 
be distinguished: (1) The development of trade unions; (2) 
co-operative or communistic activity; (3) the birth of working- 
men's parties and the participation of workingmen in the polit- 
ical activities' of the time; (4) the appearance of journals and 
newspapers devoted to the cause of labor.*^ This labor move- 
ment was ephemeral and in one sense premature; conditions 
were not yet ripe for permanency. The peculiar importance of 
this evanescent movement was due, not to the solidity and 
strength of its internal organization, but to external conditions, 
to the peculiar balancing of divergent interests which obtained 
at this particular period in the history of the United States. 
"Five industrial classes were at this time struggling for the 
mastery in America. The plantation South in alliance with the 
pioneer West held the reins of power. However, their interests 
were by no means identical ard there were many points of dis- 
agreement concerning a political program. In the North the 
commercial class was just giving Avay to the manufacturing class 



2" Recently in England a similar phenomenon may be noticed. "The Socialist 
leaders and the most notable spiritual descendants of Cobden and Mill" were 
united on the question of tree trade and the South .African war. Ilolihouse, 
Democracy and Reaction. 

*° Ely. II. T., The Labor Morcmcnt in America, ?A. 

*^ IbiiL, chs. 2 and ii : also, Simons. International Socialist Rcrieu-. 5: 140-7. 

[42] 



CVRLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 43 

and arrayed against this latter Avere the new social forces of the 
proletariat."" 

Even if this bald mathematical statement of the resolution of 
the social and political forces of this era, is not correct, it cer- 
tainly is true that at this time there was great diversity of inter- 
ests. It is perhaps sufficient to point to the election of John Q. 
Adams as President, and to the bitter struggle and changing 
attitude as to the tarifit', to illustrate the point that here was an 
excellent political opportunity for the rapidly increasing Avork- 
ing population. It was this unique situation which gave the 
workingmen a peculiarly strategic political position. It has 
been pointed out that the argument that protection would tend 
to raise the rate of wages was not injected into tariff discussions 
until after the rise of a laboring class.*' In the city and state 
of New York and in Philadelphia, after the Workingmen 's Party 
had exhibited considerable strength the old parties hastened to 
conciliate the workers and to dissipate their political strength by 
adopting important planks of their platform, or by placing some 
of the candidates or friends of the workingmen upon their 
tickets." The success of ]\Iartin Van Buren, Jackson's chief 
lieutenant in the important State of New York, Avas, in no small 
measure, due to keeping in close touch Avith the labor vote.'''' 

Although this movement soon lost its strength, it left an in- 
delible impress upon our institutions. ]\Iany forward steps 
were taken AA'hich have not, as yet. been retraced. The reasons 
for its disintegration may be briefly summarized under fi\'e 
headings. (1) A strong pennanent labor organization is' not 
to be anticipated Avhile much practically free land can be ob- 
tained; and AA'hile it is possible for the employee to pass easily 
and readily to the position of employer. Under such conditions 
class consciousness and the feeling of solidarity of interests' 
among the Avorkers do not readily develop to a suf^cieut degree 



"Simons. A. M.. Chifif^ !<tnif;(/I(ft in Amrriva. L'l. 

*' Mangold. (1. B.. before cconoinic seminary. Univ. of AA'is.. 10n.">. 

**Nrir Yfirk ffprrtalor. October ."0. 1S.:\a : Wor1;hn/ Man'-t Adrncntc. Mnreh 1."?. 
1830. Myers, G., History of Tammany Hall, 97 et seq.; Mechanics' Free Press, 
(I'liila.) September 2(1 and I.'". ()ctol)er IS. 1828. 

« Simonds. J. C, The Story of Labor in All Af/es. 438. 

[43] 



44 BULLETIN OF THE UNI\^RSITY OF ^YISCONSIN 

to insure strong;' and permanent labor union organizations. 
(2) The attainment of many of the more moderate demands 
of the labor party and labor press, such as a mechanic's lien: 
law, abolition of imprisonment for debt, and increased taxation 
for the public schools, naturally reduced the number of adher- 
ents and diminished the ardor of those remaining. (3) Coupled 
with this 'was the rising tide of the slavery agitation which 
drew the attention from the demands of the workers and ab- 
sorbed much of the vigor of the humanitarian leaders. (4) 
The stigma of infidelity which became attached to the working- 
men's party was a serious handicap. A' New York newspaper 
in discussing the success of the "Infidel" or "Fanny Wright" 
ticket (which elected a state assemblyman in 1829), after hav- 
ing enumerated its chief demands', said: "Principles like these, 
we are persuaded, would be regarded with utter abhorrence by 
the great body of 'mechanics' and 'vvorkingmen' who were so 
artfully enlisted in their support."**' Yet there was nothing in 
the published platform which savored of infidelity or of an- 
archy. (5) The communistic movement Avas also an import- 
ant factor in weakening and dissipating the strength of the 
working-men's organization. This movement also absorbed a 
portion of the strength of the humanitarian movement. The 
Workingmen's Party in New York City was first split on the 
question of agrarianism. A few months later the most import- 
ant branch of the party was divided into two sections on the 
subject of education. The weaker wing stood for the boarding, 
or communistic, school ; and the other for improvement in the 
familiar common school svstem.*' 



*'■' AVir York Mrrciiiij. November 11. ISlIU. 

^' The writer. The Workingmen's Party of New York City, 1829-31 in T7ie 
Political Science Quarterly, Sept., 1907. 



[44J 



C.VELTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 45 



CHAPTER IV 



ARGUIMENTS FOR AND AGAINST EDUCATION 

The i)robleni which now ccnfronts us, baldly stated, :s 
What were the forces engaoed in the struggle for free tax-sup- 
ported public schools? The antecedent balance of forces, and 
the important industrial and social changes of the period of 
struggle have been considered. The question directly before us 
presents itself under two closely connected aspects. First : 
AVhat were the arguments advanced during this ])erii)d for and 
against free tax-supported schools, and to what classes or inter- 
ests in the comnniu'.ty did each argument particularly appeal? 
Second : AVhat was the actual alignment of the various inter- 
ests, — ^social. industrial .and religious? 

The arguments for the free tax-supported schools, or for 
educational advance, may be summarized under seven heads. 
These are arranged approximately in the order of importance: 
(1) Education is necessary for the preservation of free in- 
stitutions. (2) It prevents class differentiation. (3) Edu- 
cation tends to diminish crime. (4) It reduces the amount 
of poverty and distress. (5) It increases production. (6) 
Education is the natural right of all individuals'. (7) Edu- 
cation will rectify false ideas as to unjust distribution of wealth. 
It will be noticed that arguments 1, 2, 6, and 7 relate to civic 
and ethical considerations ; and 3. 4 and 5 to economic consider- 
ations. The arguments against the above proposition may be 
arranged as follows: (1) Free education for all increases 
taxation unduly. (2) Taxation for the purpose of maintain- 
ing free public schools is a violation of the rights of the individ- 
ual. (3) A public system of schools was opposed by certain 
religious elements because of possible injury to particular re- 
ligious sects. (4) Certain non-English -speaking people op- 

[45] 



46 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

posed the public schools because they feared that their owm 
tongue would be supplanted by the English language. (5) Im- 
practical legislation caused much opposition. (6) It was 
urged that education would not benefit the masses. (7) In- 
jury to the private school was alleged. (8) Public education 
tends to break down social barriers. In addition, as influences 
acting adversely to educational progress may be mentioned the 
increasing opportunity to put children to work in factories, and 
a wide-spread apathy and iudifiference toward education which 
was evident in certain sections and among certain classes in the 
community. It i.s more difficult to classify these opposing 
forces'; but 2, 3, 4 and 8 may be labeled as purely conservative 
forces, and 1 and 7 as of economic nature. 

The idea that universal education is essential to free institu- 
tions is inherited from Colonial New England. This was the 
favorite argument of the man from New England. We find it 
used for example by Thaddeus Stevens and Samuel Breck in 
Pennsylvania, and by Samuel Lewis and Ephraim Cutler in 
Ohio. In general, this argument was advanced by two quite 
different elements in the nation, — the well-educated leaders in- 
fluenced by early New England ideals, and the laboring classes. 
Its advocates approached the question from two viewpoints. 
On one hand, it was urged that free institutions, could not long 
exist or could not progress without wide diffusion of education. 
"A self-governing people without education is an impossibility; 
but a self-governing people, imperfectly and badly educated 
may continually thwart itself, may often fail in its best pur- 
pose, and often carry out the worst. More especially will this 
be the case, if the power of wealth, and the power of knowledge 
failing to co-operate because one or the other is placed in a false 
position, act in destructive contradiction to each other. "^ The 
above quotation from an address delivered, in 1839, by Robert 
Rantoul is perhaps a typical statement of the argument. Gov- 
ernor Clinton of New York, at the opening of the Session of the 
State Legislature in 1827, said : ' ' The great bulwark of repub- 
lican government is the cultivation of education ; for the right 
of the suffrage cannot be exercised in a salutary manner without. 



^ Rantoul, Robert, Jr., Memoirs, 134. 

[46] 



CAKLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 47 

intelligence."- "In a republican government, general intelli- 
gence should be diffused among its citizens. They are thus en- 
abled to perform their duties as constituent parts of the govern- 
ment."^ Governor Seward of New York in his message (1839) 
declared: "The consequences of the most partial improvement 
in our system of education will be wider and more enduring' 
than the effects of any change of public policy, the benefits of 
any new princi]:>le of jurisprudence, or the results of any enter- 
prise we can accomplish."'* 

The following two quotations present the same view from the 
standpoint of the workingmen. The first shows clearly a feel- 
ing of class antagonism. "Indeed, to conceive of a popular 
government devoid of a system of popular education, is as dif- 
ficult as to conceive of a civilized society destitute of a system 
of industry. This truth has been generally received in this 
country, and never, I believe, directly denied ; although its force 
has been attempted to be evaded by the rich, who have hereto- 
fore, unfortunately, .been our sole law makers, through the 
odious system of charity schools — the bare idea of which im- 
presses a consciousne.ss of degradation, and leads to results the 
very reverse of those that ought to be produced by popular in- 
struction."^ This spirit of discontent is one phase of the move- 
ment which found concrete expression in the election of Andrew 
Jackson. A paper devoted to "the interests of farmers and la- 
boring classes voices the sentiment in the following; trite state- 
ment. "But few out of the many can receive more than a com- 
mon school education. — Give to every child this and our Repub- 
lic is safe. ""^ 

The second viewpoint emphasized the social side of the ques- 
tion, and argued that universal education was necessary to pro- 
mote the common welfare. Accordingly, education was held to be 
a public affair ; the essence of tliis view is the same as that which 
animated the men of INIassachusetts when they placed the Act 
of 1642 upon the statute books. "It is vain to say that educa- 



^ Randall, Ilistory of the Hchool System of yeie York. 27. 

^ Gov. Porter, in inaiisural address, 18.30, (I'a.) Connectieiit Common Sehool 
Journal (1839), 1: 80. 
* Ihid. 

5 Simpson, Stephen.. A Manual for Workihgmen, (1831), 201. 
^ Farmer^s and Mechanics^ Journal, (Alexander, N. Y.) April 7, 1838. 

[47] 



48 BULLETIN OP THE LTNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

tion is a private matter, and that it is the duty of every parent 
to provide for the instruction of his own children." Some par- 
ents will not. others can not. ''The State has an interest in 
every child within her limits."' Thus argued Bishop Doane to 
the people of New Jersey in 1838. A legislative committee in 
the same state declared that the duty of education is a constitu- 
tional one. "In the first place the power over education is one 
of the powers of the public police, belonging essentially to gov- 
ernment. It is the duty of self-preservation, according to its 
actual mode of existence, for the sake of the common good. ' '** 
The Secretary of the Commonwealth (Pennsylvania) in a com- 
munication to the House of Representatives of that state, used 
this argument: "If the maxim is true, that know.'edge is ■ 
power, and liberty itself but a precarious blessing without it, 
then its general diffusion becomes the common interest of all 
our citizens, in proportion to the extent each may have, personal 
and pecuniary, to defend and protect."'' " Seth Luther in his 
address on the "Education of Workingmen." delivered in 1832, 
expresses the radical position of the workingmen. "In our re- 
view we have seen a large body of human beings ruined by a 
neglect of education, rendered miserable in the extreme, and 
incapable of self-government ; and this by the grinding of the 
rich on the faces of the poor, through the operations of cotton 
and other machinery."^" Luther emphasizes the evils of the' 
factory system, dwelling particularly upon the evils of long 
hours and child labor. He holds that the factory system with 
its overivvork. unhealthy conditions and accompanying crowded 
home conditions is rendering the "common people unfit to gov- 
ern themselves," because the physical energies of the operative, 
"man, woman or child, are wasted and his mind is rendered su- 
pine."'^ In 1850, the supporters of the School Law of New 
York, passed in 1849, stood firmly on the ground that a tax to 
support schools was justified on the ground of social utility. 
"We hold, therefore, that our present school tax is not imposed 



' Hcpoit of Commifisioner of E<hicfiii(,n . llSfiT-fiS). 314. 

«Ibi(l., 323, 324. 

"Vliihiilrliihid Lihcvatov. .Tune 29. 1833. 

'" I'amphlet, Education of ^yorking1llcn. 

" Ibid. 



[48] 



CARLTOK — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 49 

on the rich for the benefit of the poor; but imposed on the whole 
State for the benefit of the State."'- The constitutionality of 
this law was attacked because the legislature anthorized a refer- 
endum to the peopk' in reijard to this law. It was claimed that 
the legislature had no ri<iht to delegate its authority by making 
the enactment of this bill rest upon the verdict of the people as 
expressed at the ballot box. 

TTniversal education will prevent class differentiation, and 
Avill tend to give all children equal opportunities in the battle of 
life. This argument, of which three different phases' may be 
distinguished, is a natural outgrowth or survival of the spirit 
which animated the American and French Revolutions. While 
it was originally urged by the middle class, it was later seized 
upon and loudly proclaimed by the rapidly increasing class' of 
wage-earners. The spokesman of the workingmen at this time 
played continually upon this string, as the following quotations 
indicate. This fact may be considered as an indication that the 
growth of cities, the increase of division of labor, and the grad- 
ually widening separation of employer from employee, had pro- 
gressed far enough by the- beginning or the middle of the decade, 
1830-1840, to produce a marked class differentiation and a 
sharp dift'erentiation of interests. 

Simpson in his afore-mentioned book, which was dedicated 
to the shade of Jefferson, declares' that, "it is to education, 
therefore, that we must mainly look for redress of that perverted 
system of society, which dooms the producer to ignorance, to 
toil, and to penur>% to moral degradation, physical want and so- 
cial l>arbarism."''' The same writer complains of the arrogance 
and pride of the educated; and adds, the "educated are gener- 
ally rich." "Literature and education, thus afftanced to opu- 
lence, naturally feel a strong repugnance to share their intellect- 
ual dominion with the nuiss of society. "'■* The retention of the 
"conniion law of (Jr-at Riit'-iin" \vas, he hf^ld, a vit-V error, as 't 
is incompatible with ecpuility in government. "A State of So- 
ciet}^ exists in this counti'y which prevents the producing classes 
from a participation in the fountains of knowledge, and the ben- 

"AVir York TrilnnK'. September L'S. IS.'O. 
•^.4 Manual for ^Vorkill!/lll('l> . 214-1."). 
'* Thi(L. 24--,. 

4 [49] 



50 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

efits equally designed for all." This condition is produced and 
sustained by "Avarice, which is nurtured and fostered by a 
defective education. "^^ The Delaware Free Press declared its 
mission to be "to awaken the attention of Working People to 
the importance of cooperation in order to attain the rank and 
station in society to which they are justly entitled by virtue of 
their industry, but from which they are excluded by want of a 
system of Equal Republican Education. "^'^ In 1835, a Min- 
ers' Journal urged that the school law of Pennsylvania would 
tend toward equality for individuals and toward the perma- 
nence of republican institutions. "The Education Law is em- 
phatically the Poor Man's Friend. "^^ One of the toasts given 
at a Workingmen's banquet, on July 4, 1830, read as follows: 
"Universal Education. — The nation's bulwark; a fortress that 
will alike defy the siege of aristocracy, and the ravages of 
time."^^ 

Horace Mann adhered emphatically to this view. "Educa- 
tion, then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is," he 
said, "the great equalizer of the conditions of men, — the bal- 
ance-wheel of the social machinery."^'' As early as 1795, Sam- 
uel Adams pointed out the dangers of the private academy. He 
feared that it would detract from the value of the common 
school, and lead to class distinctions between rich and poor.-** 
The evils which these men were combating were real, not imag- 
inary. We learn that in ^Massachusetts, "in 1838-39 there was 
spent for instruction in private schools — -not incorporated — one- 
half as much money as was spent for the common schools, — • 
wherever the private-school system in any community gets on 
its side the social and political leaders, it will grind the public 
schools to the wall, and do it under legal and constitutional 
sanction."-^ An investigation into the conmion school systems 
of New England and New York by an official conunittee from a 



''■ Luther, Seth. Address previously cited. 

^■'Dcluwfire Free Press, January 9, 10, and 2.S, 1S:50. Also, Free Enquirer, (N. 
Y.) November 21, 1820, 29. 

"■Quoted in American Daiiii Aiirertiscr, (I'liila.). January 21, 1835. 

^^ Free Enquirer, July 17, 1S:3(». 304. 

^Education and Prosperity, in Old South Leaflet, No. 144, also 12tn Report.' 

=" Martin, Evohiiiun o, the Mass. Public School System; 128. 

-' Ihifl., 129-30. 

[50] 



CARLTOX — ECOXOMIC IXFLUENCES UPOX EDUCATIOX 51 

Avesteru state furnishes contemporary evidence on this point. 
"Indeed, they [Schools of New England and New York] are al- 
ready, in some cases', particularly in Connecticut, producing 
that very discrimination between rich and poor, which above all 
things they aim to prevent and are accelerating the classifica- 
tion of the members of society according to their wealth. Only 
allow the rich (no matter under what pretext, whether of phil- 
anthropy, or patriotism, or interest) to prescribe the education 
of the poor, and they prescribe their conditions and relative im- 
portance."-- The leaders of the movement in New England for 
school supervision saw clearly that if the public school was to 
be beneficial to the masses, it must be approximately as efficient 
as the private school. 

The two following quotations throw light upon the western and 
southern view as to the efficacy of education as a leveler of in- 
vidious class distinctions. A legislative committee on common 
schools, in Ohio, -reported (1825), the system of free schools 
"seems most consonant to the principle of our constitution. It 
places the children of the rich and poor more nearly upon a 
level and counteracts, that inequality which birth and fortune 
would othertwise produce."-" Even in the South during this 
period are found advocates of a system of public schools. About 
1830, the Southern Free Press, published in Charleston, South 
Carolina, stated in its prospectus, "Our great object will be to 
urge you to break down the barrier which separates your chil- 
dren from those of lordly aristocrats by the establishment of 
national schools. ' '-* 

The economist must recognize the importance and correctness 
of the plea that education does tend to equalize opportunity, 
although today our definition of education would be broader 
than that of the men of 1830-1840. Wages of individuals vary 
greatly from the wage received by the eonnnon day laborer to 
the salary received by the skilled professional man ; and the dif- 
ference between the two rates of compensation is by no means 
solely due to differences in the expense of training w^orkers for 
the two dissimilar positions in life, or to absolute differences in 

"Barnard's Journal of Education, 5:136-37. 

-■^ American Journal of Educ<rHi.n, (IsilT), — : 4.'!7. 

^* Free Enquirer, December 26, 1829. 71. 

[51] 



52 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

efficiency, but in a large measure to a monopoly or "forced" 
gain, or rent of ability accruing to the specialist. ' ' In fact, every 
enlargement of education, in so far as it makes for greater 
equality of economic opportunity, tends to reduce differential 
rents of employment and likewise the marginal specific rents 
Avhich are seen to depend upon them."-"' While education tends 
to reduce rents of ability of all kinds, it does not, of course, at- 
tack, directly at least, other forms of "forced" or monopoly 
gains. 

The men who have, up to this point, presented the argument 
that education prevents class differentiation, have evidently had 
in mind a system of public day schools. But one branch of the 
Working-men's party in New York, of which Robert Dale Owen 
was a member, declared in favor of more radical educational 
methods. This position is well illustrated by extracts from a 
committee report prepared in May, 1830. "Your Committee 
propo,se. therefore, a System of Public Education, which shall 
provide for all children, at all times, receiving them at the ear- 
liest age their parents choose to intrust them to the national 
care; feeding, clothing, and educating them to the age of ma- 
turity. Your Committee propose that all the children so adopted 
should receive the same food: should be dressed in the same 
simple clothing; should experience the same kind of treatment; 
.should be taught (until their professional education commences) 
the same branches ; in a word that nothing savoring of inequality, 
nothing reminding them of the pride of riches, or the contempt 
of poverty, should be suffered to enter these republican safe- 
guards of a young nation of equals. . . . The food and 
clothing might be chiefly raised and manufactured by the 
pupils themselves, in the exercise of their several occupa- 
tions. . . . Your Committee do not propose that anyone 
Bhould Ix' compelled to send a child to these public schools, if he 
or she saw fit to have them educated elsewhere. But we pro- 
pose that the tax should he payed by all parents, whether they 
send their children or not.""' Education of the boarding school 



25 Hobson, J. A., Economics of Distrihntion, 339. 

26 Iv orA-inr/ Man's Adrocaic. (N. Y.), .Tune 19, ISaO. This report was iindonbt- 
edly inspired b.v the writings of the two Owens and Miss Frances Wright. Se;-, 
for example, an address of Frances Wright, delivered in Philadelphia and printed 

[52] 



CARLTOX — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 53 

iype became the most insistent demand of this branch of the 
Workingiiieii's Party. It was stoutly maintained that the ques- 
tion of day versus boarding schools was vital." Upon this point 
there could be little oi)portunity for compromise. General educa- 
tion "is the chief — we had almost said the only — essential in our 
political creed. We admit that the common school system of 
New P^ngland is cahnilated to do good — that it has done good. 
But it cannot regenerate a nation; the proof is that it has 
not. . . . Let tho,se who desire connnon day schools speak out 
at (nice. They do not desire the regeneration of this country.''-' 

The Agrarian wing of the party was, however, still more rad- 
ical. It was asserted that all educational measures, although 
highly desirable, were rendered, "in a measure, abortive'' by 
the existing inequality in social and economic conditions. "Po- 
litical dreamers! Reformers, if ye prefer that I shall call ycu 
so ! Feed first the hungry ; clothe first the naked, or ill-clad ; 
provide comfortable homes for all ; by hewing down colossal es- 
tates among us, and equalizing all property; take care that the 
animal wants be supplied first ; that even the apprehension of 
want be banished ; and then yon will have a good field and good 
subjects for education. Then will instruction be conveyed with- 
out obstacle ; for the wants, the unsatisfied wants of the body 
will not interfere with it."-^ 

The three arguments supported chiefly upon economic grounds, 
may be conveniently classed together. It was declared that unit 
versal education diminished crime, prevented poverty, and in- 
creased production. The frecjuent use of these arguments seems, 
to be due largely to the phenomenon of hard times; and its dis- 
tressing effects upon the industrial population of the cities. It 
.vas felt that something was wrong; and it was believed that 
l)hilanthrophy, temperance reform and a protective tariff could 
not alone cure the evils which afflicted the working ])eople. 
The peculiar conditions during this ])eriod of unusual industrial 
development caused the formation of this almost ianatical and 

in the Free Eiuiuircr, Docemhcr 1-. ISi'it, .51 : a series of articles taken from the 
i\nc York Dnilij Sentinel, puhlishcd in the Free Enquirer. May 1 to 1-"). 1S:50 ; and 
An Ontlinr <)' it Rati'inn! /S'l/N/i </( af KiliicnUon . in The Cii-slx. Ma.v 2C,. lS:>i;. 

"Quoted in the Worl^iin/ Man's A,lru,-<il(. Ma.v -J'.t. ls:iO. from tlic Xrir Yurk- 
f<enti)iel. 

■-'■ Skidmori'. Thomas. Ifi<;li1s <,( Man to I'niiKrti/. (1820). 300. 

[53] 



54 BULLETIX OF THE UXH^RSITY OF WISCOXSIX 

wide-spread belief that education of the narrow type then prev- 
alent, would markedly reduce the amount of poverty and crime 
in the land, and would cause the Avorker to become a more effi 
cient producer. Although these arguments greatly exaggerated 
the influence which a purely intellectual education can have 
upon the prevalence of crime or of poverty, or upon the effi- 
cienc}'- of a workman, they were important factors in the strug- 
gle for tax-supported schools, and they appealed to a class in 
the community who were in a large measure indifferent as to 
all the other arguments advanced. 

Horace Mann was one of the chief exponents of the impor- 
tance of education from the economic point of view. He de- 
(clared in his Report for 1846 that if education was merely de- 
manded as a basis for good citizenship in a republican form of 
government, a monarch would be justified in opposing it. 
'Therefore, Mann sought more universal and fundamental 
foundations upon which to build the system of public schools. 
"Beyond the power of diffusing old wealth it [education] has 
the prerogative of creating new." For the creation of wealth, 
"intelligence is the grand condition."-^ "That political econ- 
omy, therefore, which busies itself about capital and labor, sup- 
ply and demand, interest and rents, favorable and unfavorable 
balances of trade, but leaves out of account the element of a 
"wide-spread mental development, is naught but stupendous 
folly. "^^ He also asserts that education is a preventive of 
-crime and vice. "The property of this commonwealth [Mass- 
achusetts] is pledged for the education of all its youth up to 
such a point as will save them from poverty and vice, and pre- 
pare them for the adequate performance of their social and civil 
duties. "^^ Mann's firm belief in the efficacy of education as a 
cure for the social and economic ills of society led him to enun- 
ciate a doctrine Avhicli has a distinctly modern ring. "The suc- 
cessive holders of this property are trustees bound to the faith- 
ful execution of their trust by the most sacred obligations; and 
■embezzlement and pillage from children and descendants have 



-' Mann. Horace. Rciiovt of 1^S in Life anrj iro/7.s of Horace Mann. 4: 2.52, 2.59. 

^"IhifL, 260. 

3» Mann, Horace. Report of IS'iH in Life and Works of Horace Mann, 4: 131. 



[54] 



C-UILTOX — ECOXOMIC IXFLUENCES UPOX EDUCATIOX 55 

not less of criminality, and have more of meanness than the 
same offences when perpetrated against contemporaries. "^- 

An earl}^ American economist and college president states the 
case in an interesting and convincing manner; and, if we read 
a broad meaning into the terms, "intellectual" and "knowl- 
edge" his argument might be accepted at the present time. 
"Intellectual cultivation tends' to increase the industrj^ of a peo- 
ple in two ways: First, by exciting a people to exertion; and, 
Second, by directing that exertion . . . Ignorant people 
are indolent, because they know neither the results that may 
be aecomi)lished. nor the benefits that may be secured by in- 
dustry. . . . But, it is evident, that improvement in knowl- 
edge, in order to be in any signal degree beneficial, nuist be 
universal. A single individual can derive but little advantage 
from his knowledge and industry if he be surrounded by a 
community both ignorant and indolent. In just so far as 
other men improve their conditions, and l)eeome useful to 
themselves, they become useful to him : and both parties thus 
become useful to each other. This is especially the case 
where a government is, in its character, popular; that is, 
Avhere laws emanate from the more numerous classes. In 
such a case, not only is an intelligent person not benefited, 
but he is positively injured, by the ignorance and indolence of 
his neighbors."^-'' An ardent supporter of the ^Maryland optional 
school law passed in 1826 attempted to convince the rich that 
the law was beneficial to them. ' ' Although the poor will doubt- 
less derive incalculable benefits, the rich will receive the greater 
gain, inasmuch as their greater riches will thence obtain its 
greatest protection and security . . . from the best assur- 
ance of good government, to-wit, the general diffusion of useful 
Imowledge amongst the great body of the people."^* Again 
he urges that "as in proportion to the amount of property 
is the protection of that interest to be estimated, so, in the 
like manner are they [the wealthy] concerned in the general 
intelligence of the common people.""^ 



^^Jbi'i.. i::2. 

=3 Wayland, Francis, Political Economy, (copyright 1S37), cli. Ill, sec. 5. 

s^Teackle. L. D., Eastoii (ild.), Rei)ul)Ucan Star, July 4. 1820. 

^Ihi(L. July 11. 182G. 



[55] 



56 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

Kantoiil told the "workingmen that "the main object of gov- 
ernment is the protection of persons and property, and this 
object will be more effectually secured by the general education 
of the people, than by any penal code, however rigidly en- 
forced."'"' Simpson informs us that "knowledge is the grand 
remedy of intemperance." Out of the West came this literary 
gem: — "Far better to pay taxes' which will rise like vapors to 
descend in refreshing showers, than to build jails, penitentiaries 
and almshouses, to relieve wretchedness and punish crime which 
a wholesome education might have prevented."^' Ghanning 
^vas a most earnest and able advocate of education for the work- 
ing people. In his essay, entitled, "The Elevation of the Labor- 
ing Classes," is found this significant statement. "The im- 
pulses which are to reform and quicken society, are probably 
to come, not from its most conspicuous, but from its obscurer^ 
divisions ; and among these, I see with joy new wants, princi- 
ples and aspirations, beginning to unfold themselves." The 
most radical and optimistic view of the economic significance of 
education naturally is held by the communists of this period. 
The creed of Eobert Dale Owen illustrates the extreme posi- 
tion taken by this class of reformers. "I believe in a National 
System of Equal, Republican, Protective, Practical Education, 
the sole regenerator of a profligate age, and the only redeemer 
of our suffering country from the equal curses of chilling pov- 
erty and corrupting riches, of gnawing Avant and destroying 
debauchery, of blind ignorance and of unprincipled intrigue."^'® 

The opinion that education is a natural right of all indi- 
viduals, is quite closely related to the first argument in this list. 
Daniel Webster evidently had both ideas clearly in mind in an 
address which he delivered in 1822. N(^w England, he said, 
"early adopted and has constantly maintained the principle 
that it is the undoubted right, and the bounden duty of uovern- 
ment, to provide for the instruction of all youtl . For the pur- 
pose of public instruction, we hold every man subject to taxa- 
tion in propoition to his property, and we look not to the 



3«Rantonl, Roljert. .Jr., S^ijeech to Worl-ingmen of America (1833) in Memoirs, 
140. 

" Lewis, Samuel, Report of IS.'io in Ohio School Journal, 1. 
3»J(te Enquirer. November 7. 1829, 14. 

[56] 



CARLTOX — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 57 

question, whether he himself have, or have not, ehiklren to be 
benefited by the education for which he pays. We regard it as 
a wise and lil)eral system of police, by which property, and 
life, and the peace of society are secured.""'' Mann in his 
Tenth Report declared that every human being has an absolute 
right to an education ; and held that the education of the labor- 
ing class "enables the workingman to eat the fruits of his labor." 
"We may dismiss this argument by noting that it is the logical 
outgrowth of the theory that man is endowed with certain in- 
alienable rights. 

The last plea for the alBrmative is a somewhat unique one, 
fathered by a writer on political economy. "Education imi- 
versally extended throughout the community, will tend more- 
over to disabuse the w^orking class of people in respect of a no- 
tion that has crept into the minds of our mechanics, and is gradu- 
ally prevailing, that manual labor is, at present, very inade- 
quately rewarded, owing to combinations of the rich against the 
poor; that mere mental labor is comparatively worthless; that 
property or wealth, ought not to be accumulated or transmitted ; 
that to take interest on money lent or profit on capital employed 
is unjust. These are notions that tend strCingiy toward an equal 
division of property, and the right of the poor to plunder the 
rich. The mistaken and ignorant people who entertain these 
fallacies as truths, will learn, 'when they have the opportunity 
of learning, that the institution of political society originated 
in the protection of property."""' This writer is surely a fore- 
runner of the managers of recent "campaigns of education," 
for various partisan or special reasons. In opposition to the 
generally accepted view, this advocate of universal instruction 
asserted ai)parently that education is a conservative force, — an 
influence which stiftens exi.sting law and custom instead of tend- 
ing to level social and economic differences. But would the ad- 
herents of th^ e two apparently conflicting views agree upon a 
definition of the term "education"? 

As might reasonably be anticipated the most vital arguments 
against the public school system center around the necessary 



Seo Report of Coiiiiiii-^sioiicr of K<Utcat'ion . (18fi7-fi8V 3l!7. 
'Cooper. Thomas. r:ir,ii<iits of Politicdl Evonomji. (lSi2!)). ;^.33-4. 

[57] 



58 BULLETIX OF THE UXR-ERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

increase in the amount of public taxation which must result 
from any enlargement or considerable improvement in the sys- 
tem. The great stumbling block in the path of educational pro- 
gress during this era was taxation. The land grant system, 
however, as has been noted, reduced, in a measure, the difficulties 
arising from this obstacle. The economic arguments in favor 
of free schools were concerned chiefly with the improved effi- 
ciency of those who would become workers a few years hence, or 
with the prevention of pauperism and crime a decade later. In 
prosperous times when the numbers of unemployed and pauper 
classes were somewhat reduced, these arguments did not appeal 
directly and concretely to the tax-payer: in fact at no period 
could they be expected to forcibly appeal to persons living in 
rural districts'. On the other hand, stands opposed the imme- 
diate, tangible results of an increase in the tax-rate. Education 
deals with the future ; taxation bears down today. It was simply 
a case of increasing present individual expenses with a view to 
future general good, to the public welfare some years hereafter. 
Herein lay the great strength of the argument that all improve- 
ments in the public school system would increase direct, visible 
taxation, and increase it inequitably. 

Other arguments in favor of better public educational facili- 
ties centered around civic, ethical and sentimental motives. 
Where these come directly into conflict with present, although 
perhaps short-sighted and insufficient, economic motives, unless 
a high ideal is raised and accompanied by patriotic zeal or re- 
ligious' ardor, they are almost sure to fall by the way-side. It 
iwas easy for the taxpayer to justify non-support of a public 
school system, exactly as it was not difficult' for the southern 
plantation owner to present plausible arguments in favor of a 
continuance of the institution of slavery. Both phenomena 
spring originally from the same fountain head. — the temporary 
economic interests of the individual, or of a group of individuals. 
Just as the northern man lacked this economic interest in re- 
gard to slavery, so the workingmen and the smaller taxpayer, 
did not feel the force of the argument based upon increased 
taxation. They considered this view to be sordid and selfish: 
their pocketbooks were not visibly depleted, and their children 
attended the free public schools. 

[58] 



CARLTOX — ECONOMIC IXFLUEXCES UPOX EDUCATIOX 59 

The foUowiug quotation eonceiiiing the struggle for public 
tax-supported schools in Pemisylvania, in 1834 and 1835. illus- 
trates how bitter was the opposition which arose through the in- 
crease in taxation. "There were taxes, and there is no more 
certain method of stirring up public opinion of a virtuous 
thrifty and frugal people, such as then inhabited Pennsylvania, 
than by pricking their pocketbooks. They were willing to have 
reform, provided it did not come high, or they were not com- 
pelled to pay for it. A violent reaction arose. Nearly half 
the districts in the State rejected the act or contemptuously- ig- 
nored it. "■'^ From New England comes similar testimony. 
■"HoAvever the dominant Calvinistic theology of Puritan ]\Iass- 
aehusetts' may have theorized concerning 'fixed fate' and "fore- 
knowledge absolute,' practically it recognized in every village 
eommunit}' a free moral agent, acting out its OAvn volitions and 
drawing upon itself the consequences of its own freedom. Out 
of this grew the individuality so characteristic of ^Massachusetts 
towns: some open to new influences, looking always toward the 
•east, ready to welcome the rising sun, generous in sentiment and 
provision, always in the van of social progress ; others narrow, 
petty, parsimonious, -burning incense to the past rather than of- 
fering sacrifices to the future; not because they reverence the 
past so much; but because incense is cheaper than oxen or sheep, 
or libations of wine and oil."^- In another section the same 
author declares that the ^Massachusetts law of 1826. which estab- 
lished high schools in every town of the state, was opposed by 
two elements: the academies and private schools, and by the in- 
habitants of the agricultural towns."'' This would tend to place 
the rural towns in the incense-burning class. 

In New York during the agitation of 1849 and 1850, the 
matter of taxation played the chief role. The Xew York Tribune 
■stated "that the backbone of the opposition [to free schools] is 
hostility to be taxed to school other men's children — that is to the 
free school principle in any form."** A correspondent to the 
Plaindealer published in Roslyn, Queens County, declared that 
he considered the "present [1849] odious School Law" as 



*i McCall, Life of Tha/Idnis Stcrr„.-<. ?,r,. 

'-Martin. Ernlution of the Massachusetts School Siistem, SG- 

^md., 197-98. 

" October 17. l.S.")0. 



[59] 



60 ^ BULLETIN OF THE UNI\:ERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

"worse than highway robbery." Clark Rice, a wealthy citizen 
of Watertown. New York, yi a letter defined a free school law 
in emphatic terms. "What is a Free School Law? Allow me 
to answer, it is in one particular, a Poor-Law. It differs a 
little from our ordinary Poor-Law. The latter is for filling the 
belly and covering- the back at the expense of the Tax-Payer. 
The former for conferring an accomplishment, — a useful one to 
be sure — the driving of knowledge into the head.""'"'' A news- 
paper correspondent summed up the chief arguments :n the New 
York agitation, against the School Law, as f oIIoavs : — (1) The 
state has no right to tax one man to pay for the education of 
another's children; (2) the children of the poor will grow up 
idle and lazy if education is provided free of charge; (3) the 
la'W was held to be the entering wedge of agrarianism and 
Fourierism.^'' At a mass meeting called for the purpose of 
opposing the School Law, and held in Jeft'erson, New York, "a 
resolution to the effect that they were strongly opposed to all 
taxation to support schools and to vote for no man who upheld 
the system, was proposed but being regarded as inexpedient, 
was withdrawn."^' 

In Ohio, in 1829, the passage of a law Avas secured which gave 
the city of Cincinnati the right to organize city schools, and 
the authority to levy special taxes to support the same. Never- 
theless, "the cautious city council were reluctant to tax the 
people for the support of free schools the richest objecting most 
to what they called 'charity schools.'"*® A curious' survival 
of old arguments is found in a recent statement of a lecturer 
before a New York Study Club. "The better class of people 
in New York cannot afford large families. They have too much 
to pay in taxes to support the large families of the thoughtless 
poor . . . New York property owners pay increasingly large 
taxes every year, due mainly to the enormous immigration. Who, 
may I ask, 'would want to pay taxes to educate children that 
should never have been brought into the world? Why should 



■•'' AVic York Tribune. September 26. IS.'td. 
•'"AVic York Eveniiuj Pout, August 1'7. IS.'iO. 
^' fhid.. October 11. 18."i(). 

'^Venable, Literarij Culture in the Ohio- Valley, 421. See also Foote, J. P., 
Schools of Cinciniuiti. .■'>4-7. 

[60] 



CARLTOX — ECONOMIC INFLUEXCES UPOX EDUCATION 61 

the thrifty pay toi- the shiftless? I am not so un-c;hristian as 
to say that the ehihl once here should not be ca.red .for. But 
BO long- as tax-payers pay for expensive play grounds, etc., the 
children of the poor will increase like rabbits :n a burrow."*^ 
Dr. Wayland appears tt) luive held similar views. He believed 
that educational expenses might be provided "partly, by a 
general fund. This fund should, however, never defray more 
than a portion of the expense; for no man values highly, what 
he gets for nothing."'^'" 

The plea that free public education is a violation to the rights 
of the individual and an infringement upon his liberty, joins 
hands on the one side w'th the argument .iust discussed, and 
on the other side Avith religious opposition to a public school 
system. It is extremely interesting and important to notice 
that many of. the points advanced by the men who presented 
this line of argument, have reappeared in more recent years, 
under a slightly different garb in opposition to other radical 
or progressive measures advocated by workingmen. The neg'a- 
tive definition of liberty 'was used by those who employed this 
argument as a weapon directed against the public school sys- 
tem. Liberty was assumed to be non-interference with the in- 
dividual: protection and tax-supported schools looked to govern- 
ment interference. The definitions of "rights" and of "in- 
dividual liberty" are extremely liable to be given a class or 
sectarian interpretation, or to be used merely as catch i\hrases 
to snare the unwary. 

Rhode Island affords an example of the extreme position 
taken by the opponents to tax-supported schools. "The original 
Providence compact to obey the government of the majority 
'only in things civil' had been perverted so that education by 
the state was supposed to violate the religious liberty of the 
parent, a curious illustration of the way in which the narrowest 
sectarianism may fraternize with the most radical assertion of 
c!vil and religious liberty; . . . So violent was this prejudice 
that respeetal)le members of the legislature declared that the 
attempt to tax a connnunity for public schools 'would be resisted 



*o Vfiirdf/o Uccnrd-Hcmhl. Novprnher 10. IDo: 
^'> Political Economji, 13(t. 



[61 



62 BULLETIN OF THE UXI\-ERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

at the point of the bayonet.' ''''^ Here is an excellent example of 
liberalism imitiug with reactionary religious sectarianism against 
the more modern ideal of democracy. The force which 
in the earlier history of Rhode Island stood for progress, was 
now a conservative and retrograde influence. In 1828, a law 
Avas passed making the support, of the public school optional 
with the towns. In 1844, 16 years later, only three towns im- 
posed a tax for school purposes. In 1847, on the contrary, only 
three towns refused to impose local taxes for that purpose. This 
apparently sudden reversal of public opinion in this manu- 
facturing state has been attributed to the campaign of enlighten- 
ment carried on by Henry Barnard.'^- The really significant 
fact is that in the early forties the long struggle for a consti- 
tution and broader suffrage qualifications ended. Immediately 
after this extension of the right to cast the ballot, tax-supported 
schools begin to increase rapidly, and by 1850 the principle 
was apparently established in this state, beyond controversy. 
If the two facts are closely related to each other; one further 
connnent ought to be made. In 1840, according to the census 
reports, fifty-one and a fraction per cent, of all persons engaged 
in gainful occupations, in Rhode Island, were engaged in manu- 
facture; or in other words a very high percentage of her citi- 
zens were wage-earners. We must not lose sight of these facts 
when more detailed consideration is given to influence of the 
wage-earning population upon the development of the public 
schoor system. 

In Massachusetts, in 1839, a new administration came into 
power. It Avas suggested that the care and control of the schools 
should be left to "the nurseries of pure democracy," — the town 
and district meeting. It was asserted that the Board of Educa- 
tion which was trying to introduce supervision into the schools,, 
and to increase the power of the central authorities and weaken 
that of the local districts, was trying to ' ' Prussianize ' ' the schools. 
Further the new administration held that the Board was at- 
tempting to substitute aristocratic for democratic measures,—^ 
an ingenious device for crushing the liberties of the citizens of" 



Mayo. Rri)nit of Coiiiui i>isinncr of E<1 neat ion, (1890-07), 787. 
J hid., 7S4 ft Sit/. 

[62] 



CAELTOX — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 63 

the eoinniomveMlth. This view did not prevail in the le^i'islature, 
and the Board of Education was allowed to continue its work.^* 
A writer discussing opposition to free education, has stated the 
arguments as follows; — ^*'But these opponents of free education' 
object to any coi-iipulsory proceedings on the part of the State, 
alleging that a law of this character, if passed, would be a viola- 
tion of the liberty of the cititzen, who has a right to do as he 
pleases, to educate his children or not, as he pleases, to w^orship 
God or not, as he pleases, and to live free from any restraint 
of any kind, whether civil or moral."'* It would not be difficult 
to find arguments advanced in opposition to labor unions, col- 
lective bargaining, or an eight-hour day, which rest upon the 
same foundations and repeat almost identical phrases. 

A strong defender of the cause of public schools and a friend 
of the working classes, makes a rather long statement of the 
situation, but one whicli seems worthy of ciuotation. "A sys- 
tem of general education, one would hardly imagine, could meet 
with an opponent in an age so enlightened and so philanthropic 
— an age so distinguished for the march of mind, the diffusion 
of knowledge, and a severe scrutiny into all the principles that 
combine in the structure of society. And yet, wonderful to 
say, public education for the people has gothic adversaries, and 
illiberal, narrow-minded traducei's. The extension of the lights 
of loiowledge by popular education, to all the people of the re- 
public, has ever been the avowed ob.ject of our most illustrious 
statesmen. The text of the friends of liberty was — to enlighten 
the people is to promote and cement the public virtue. The 
soundness of the text was never questioned anterior to the or- 
ganization of a party, whose ob.ject it was to obtain it from the 
legislature as a right, un.justly withheld. When public instruction 
was bestowed as a boon of charity, it found numerous advocates, 
and met with no opponents; but now when we .justly demand 
it as a right — and under our constitution it must be a right and 
not a charity— it is not only refused by some, but to our utter 
amazement, its consequences are painted as baneful to the people, 
and deprecated as having a fatal tendency upon the good order 



*» Martin, Evolution of Massachusetts School System, 17S-79. 
" Dnflaeld, D. B., Barnard's Journal of Education, 1857, 3: 95. 

[63] 



64 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

of government. AVe seem to have resuscitated from the tom)) of 
time the very spirit of the feudal ages, in the breasts of certain 
bigots, intolerants, aristocrats, and narrow-minded monopolists 
of knowledge, Avho seem as averse to giving the people light, 
as they are to paying them for their labor in hard money. "^^ 
Several states which authorized in their constitutions, or by-laws, 
the formation of a public school system, allowed these laws or 
constitutional provisions to be dead letters for years. When an 
attempt >vas finally made to enforce the laws or carry out the 
requirements laid down l)y the constitution, violent op])Osition 
•immediately arose. It appears that there are grounds for the 
contention made in the latter part of the quotation. One other 
feature of interest in the above quotation is the use of the term 
"liberty." It is quite evident that Simpson has abandoned the 
narrow negative definition, it means something positive to hiuL 

To conclude the discussion of this argument, it may be well 
to present a clause quoted from resolutions purporting to have 
been drawn u}) at a New York State mass meeting in 1850. 
These resolutions give us an inkling into the bitterness of the 
fight on tax-supported schools in the Empire State, less than 
three score years ago. The present law, declared the resolutions, 
"is infidel socialism in its principles; unjust and oppressive in 
its operation; immoral in its tendency, irreligious in its conse- 
quences, and injurious to the cause of education; both l)y not 
possessing the proper requisites — and by destroying the harmony 
so necessary for its successful operation.""''' 

Racial and religious opposition to the public school system 
during this period may be considered under one head, as these 
two forms of opposition usually went hand in hand. In New 
England, one nationality was predominant; differences in lan- 
guage did not complicate the situation. While many slightly 
different religious sects did spring up in New England, these 
were practically in accord in regard to the value and desirabil- 
ity of the maintenance of schools by the state rather than l\v the 
church. The scene is, therefore, shifted from New England to 



=5 Simpson, A Manual for Workinymen, (1831), 212-13. 

^^Neir York Tribune, September 26. 1850. Meeting lield in Cliarton. Saratoga 
Co. 



[64] 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 65 

the Middle Region ; and the most important and speetaeiihir strusi- 
gle of this nature occurred in Pennsylvania. In these states is 
found a heterogeneous population. In New York and Pennsyl- 
vania, for example, we see very clearly and distinctly, the clash 
of city against rural districts, agriculture against manufacture 
and commerce, nationality against nationality, and religion 
against religion. These two important states became the battle 
ground of interests, economic, racial and religious. They became 
the breeding grounds of political rings and bosses. Here we 
find the struggle for and against the public school system un- 
rolled in all its severity and complexity. At present, we are 
concerned with and must examine only one phase ; namely, that 
caused by the commingling in one commonwealth of different 
peoples possessing widely divergent ideas of life and religious 
beliefs. The antagonistic peoples are chiefly represented by the 
English on the one hand and the Germans and the Dutch on 
the other : the religious elements are the Calvinistic belief or some 
modification of it transplanted from Xew England, and the 
Quaker. Lutheran, or some allied sect. 

As has already been mentioned, the attempt to carry out the 
provisions of the "pauper clause" in the constitution of the 
state of Pennsylvania, was not crowned with success. In the 
early part of 1834. an educational law was passed by the state 
legislature, with little consideration or opposition. Its provisions 
were not well understood at the time of its passage, and it proved 
to provide for a very cumbrous and unAvieldy mechanism. The 
following quotation from a letter written by a member of the 
state legislature shows why the bill of 1833-183-4 was carried 
with practically no opposition, and gives one reason for later 
opposition. "The bill reported by the joint committee of 1833- 
34 was generally regarded as correct in principle, and, as mem- 
bers of either house were alike inexperienced, it was not much 
discussed, but was passed l)y a unanimous vote in the Senate 
and with but one dissenting vote in the House. Samuel Breck 
of the Senate. Chairman of the joint committee, was undoubtedly 
the author of the bill. He was a highly educated gentleman, 
past the meridian of life, who had never mixed much with the 
people living in country districts. Hence we cannot wonder that 
the main fault of this law, perhaps its only material fault, was 
5 [65] 



66 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

the great amount of machinery required to carry it into effect."^'' 
This law provided for free schools for all in the districts ac- 
cepting it. A state appropriation was provided to be distributed 
to those districts which would levy a local tax for the purpose of 
providing and maintaining free public schools. Districts not 
providing for local taxation received nothing from the state.^^ 
The following quotations from "Wickersham 's admirable His- 
tory of Education in Pennsylvania, give a vivid picture of the 
opposition which this unfortunate law stirred up and brought 
to the surface. "Of the 987 districts then in the State, 485 
either voted outright against free schools or stubbornly took no 
action whatever- in reference to the matter. In many districts 
the contest between those in favor of accepting the new law and 
those determined to reject it, became so bitter, that party and 
even church ties were for a time broken up, the rich arrayed 
themselves against the poor, and the business and social rela- 
tions of whole neighborhoods were greatly disturbed. Cases are 
Imown in which father and son took different sides, and in cer- 
tain districts an outspoken free school man was scarcely allowed 
to live in peace and transact his ordinary business. ' '"^ The op- 
position was by no means entirely confined within certain re- 
ligious denominations; but on another page the same author 
declared: "The new law (1833-1834) met with most favor in 
the northern counties. These had been settled principally by 
people from New England and New York, who had been accus- 
tomed to public schools and understood their advantages. It was 
comparatively well received in the counties Avest of the Alle- 
ghanies, where a diversity in wealth had not yet bred distinc- 
tions of class, and where different nationalities and different 
religious denominations had become so thoroughly mixed as to 
recognize an educational interest in common. Opposition to it 
was most formidable in the southern, central, and southeastern 
portions of the State, and greatest of all in the counties and dis- 
tricts where the people were principally of German descent. "^° 

"Quoted T)y Edmonrls, History of the Central High Sclioo-l of Phila., 21, foot 
note. 

=^ Senator Breck was a New England man by liirth. lie was born in Boston^ 
in 1771 : and was at this time living near Bhiladelphia. 

'-' Wickersham. 31S. 

'"Hid.. 318-19. See also Edmonds, 21. 

[66] 



CARLTOX — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 67 

The Friends, T^utheraiis. the Keforuied and ]\Iennoiiites. where 
they were sufficiently numerous, usually had schools of their 
own and. as a rule, arrayed themselves against this law.'^^ The 
free schools were called " Ztviny Schulen," — forced schools. 

Of the Quakers and their view of education, Fiske writes: — ■ 
"In spite of their liberalism, the Quakers attached far less im- 
portance to education than the Puritans of New England — 
Quakers, in studying the Bible depended upon their Inner Light 
rather than that critical interpretation of texts to which the 
orthodox Puritans attached so much importance.'"'- In 1786 
this prayer was introduced into the litany of the Lutheran 
Church. "And since it has pleased Thee, chietiy by means of 
the Germans, to transform this state into a blooming garden, 
and the desert into a pleasant pasturage, help us not to deny 
our nation, but to endeavor that our youth may be so educated 
that German churches and schools may not only be sustained, 
"but may attain a still more flourishing condition. "^^ It was this 
conservatism which placed the Germans in the ranks of opposi- 
tion to free public schools. "Many persons of German descent 
combated the -free school idea because the instruction was to be 
given in the English language, and they feared tbat it would 
result in the displacement of their mother-tongue.'"'* Hon. 
H. A. Muhlenberg in his frequently quoted letter to the working- 
men of Philadelphia, (Jan. 1836) presents another reason for 
German opposition. "The Germans of our State are not op- 
posed to education as such, but only to any system that to them 
seems to trench on their parental and natural rights." The op- 
position of the Germans was then, two-fold: their idea of an 
educational system was that of one dominated by the church and 
clergy, to this the public school stood directly opposed; and 
they feared an>i:hing which would tend to destroy the use of 
their language. 

In the state of New York this phenomenon was less marked, 
but by no means absent. A newspaper correspondent, in 1850, 
wrote that objection to the free school law of 1849 came from 



'•' Jhi<l., .310. 

'^" Thr Dutch (iinl Qiiiihtr <'(jh,i\i<K in Aiiierk-o, 3: 820. 

«■' Quoted hy Kulins. German and Swiss Settlements in Pcnn., 11' 

" Edmonfls. 21. 

[67] 



68 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

*' those who wished sectarian religious schools." Arguing from 
an economic point of view, he adds, "but, if in a school district 
of 200 inhabitants, we must have a Quaker, Presbyterian, 
Baptist, Methodist, Episcopalian and Roman Catholic school, it 
Vvill be too expensive, and will cause education to be neg- 
lected."*'^ Another account of the same period declares' that, 
"religious prejudice was brought to bear on the side of popular 
ignorance with considerable effect.'"^'' In New York (1830- 
1860) "was being wrought out in the common school policy of 
the State the most difficult educational problem of the new Re- 
public, the forming of a cosmopolitan people, representing all 
the political hostilities and obstinate religious differences of the 
past thousand years of European life, in one homogeneous 
civilization.""' 

It is unnecessary to dwell upon the retarding influence of 
hasty and ill-advised school legislation. ]\Iany bills were framed 
and passed which could not be carried into effect in an efficient 
manner. The result of ill-advised work of the friends of edu- 
cation was turned into a powerful weapon to be wielded by the 
hands of the enemies of free schools ; and was utilized to turn 
many wavering ones in the direction of the opposition. 

The opponents of the public school system who argued against 
it on the ground of its non-utility may be divided into two broad 
general classes: those honestly conservative members of the 
community who were unable to see wherein school instruction 
would benefit the children of the great mass of the people; and 
those who were opposed to the public school system for personal 
or mercenary reasons, but who used this argument as a cloak to 
conceal the real animus of their antagonism. A situation de- 
veloped similar to that found in the early history of the steam 
•or electric railroad, or of the introduction of gas lighting in 
cities. ]\liany persons were truly apprehensive of the evils which 
they felt would follow in the wake of these, to them, startling 
and revolutionary innovations ; others opposed their introduc- 
tion because they were interested in enterprises which might be 
.adversely affected by these new features of our industrial life. 



"^Apir York Evinimj Post. November 8. IS.jO. 

"o Editorial, New York T)\\\me, Novsmber 28, 1850. 

'^^ liciiort of Comiuinsioiur if Education. (1807-98). 464. 

i:;8] 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 69 

An extract from John Kaudolpirs speech before the Virginia 
Constitution Convention of 1829, illustrates in an extreme form, 
the view of the first class. "Among the strange notions which 
have been broached since I have been on the political theater, 
there is one which has lately seized the minds of men, that all 
things nnist be done for them by the government, and that they 
are to do nothing for themselves . . . Look at that ragged fel- 
low staggering from the whiskey shop, and see the slattern who 
has gone to reclaim him ; where are their children ? Running about 
ragged, idle, ignorant, fit candidates for the penitentiary. Why 
is all this so? Ask the man and he will tell you, Oh! the gov- 
ernment has undertaken to educate our children for us. It has 
given us a premium for idleness, and now I spend in liquor 
which I should otherwise be obliged to save, to pay for their 
schooling.'""® ' Mann speaks of secret opponents, and those who 
fought against the development of the Massachusetts school 
system from mercenary motives. He also mentions that many 
have no faith in the utility of education, and call it a Utopian 
scheme.^^ 

The con.servative opposition was particularly .strong in the 
rural districts. Here the close connection between industry and 
home life was maintained long after it had vanished in the cities. 
School education is only one form of education. At this early 
period, school education consisted almost entirely of purely in- 
tellectual drill and discipline, and was limited to a very narrow 
range of subjects. The more modern idea of a broader and 
richer curriculum was not as yet even dreamed of; and indeed 
the time was not yet ripe for such a modification in the func- 
tions of the school. '° The farming population could not see 
how education was to be of much benefit to their children; at 
lea&t it iwas not clear to them that it was worth nnich sacrifice 
in the shape of higher taxes. The practical, hard-headed farmer 
could not see that much book-learning 'would help their children 
to earn their daily bread or enable them more easily to pay for 
a farm. The education they valued was obtained in the school 



•^s Richmond IJnquirer, Xovember 24, 1829. 
•'■"Mann. Horace. Report of 1S.',7. op. cit.. 141. 

•o See two articles by the writer in Engineering Magazine, September, 1904, 
and Education, December, 1905. 

[69] 



70 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

of daily experience, on the farm itself. One of Pennsylvania's 
historians, in discussing the attitude of the farmers of that state 
on this subject, reveals the crux of the situation. "The main 
motive which led them to establish schools was not found in 
their daily occupations. Reading and sewing were valued for 
girls, and reading, writing and ciphering for boys, as necessarj^ 
for life's duties, but the chief incentives to the employment of 
teachers must be sought in a realm outside of secular occupa- 
tions. This was, in many cases, a religious motive.""^ To this 
must be added, at least in the case of the English-speaking 
farmer, the belief in the value of education in the formation of 
good citizens and, hence, in the preservation of free institu- 
tions'. 

Before passing to the consideration of the next argument, the 
following emphatic and sweeping charge is worthy of notice. 
At a meeting of teachers in Northampton, ]\Iassachusetts, as late 
as 1850, a Dr. Sylvester Graham ' ' denounced the whole common 
school system as an evil, and said there was no safeguard for 
the young when away from the eyes of the parent, . . . "'- This 
gentleman evidently Avished for a return to the household form 
of education; the transformations wrought by industrial pro- 
gress of the preceding thirty or forty years were not connected 
by him with a necessity for educational progress. 

The antagonism between the public school system and the 
private schools and academies has been incidentally touched 
upon above. '^" In some states, the academies and public school 
societies were partially subsidized by the state. The proprietors 
of private schools felt that they ought not to be deprived of 
their opportunity to educate the young. No doubt they con- 
sidered that they had a sort of vested interest which would be 
injured by the development of the public school system.'* 

The eighth and last argument against the public school sys- 
tem is nothing more or less than the use by the opposition of 
the second argument in favor of the system. What has been 
urged as a beneficent condition in society is now looked upon 



" .Tenkins, Pen»syJvanUi. Colonial and Federal, 3: 1. 2. 

"- Tfeiv Yoi-k Evenino Post. August 20, 18.50. 

" Second ai'Ufument in favor of public scliools. 

" See Steiner. llisioni of Education in Monihnul. 02 et. neq. 

[70] 



CAELTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 71 

with alarm. The Avorking classes and the frontiersman hailed 
equality and the loAvering of social barriers as undisguised 
blessings. But certain elements in the communitj^ opposed the 
public school, because it tended to strengthen the spirit of de- 
moerac3^ " It is curious to see how long the higher social circles 
of the commercial towns. — Boston. Salem, and Xewburyport — 
clung to the old traditions, and how they resisted the encroach- 
ments of that leveling spirit which would break doA\Ta the old 
social barriers. Thus in Xewburyport, in 1790, when it was 
proposed to open primary schools for girls at public expense, 
the school committee of clergymen, doctors, squires, and cap- 
tains recommended that all girls Avho attended these schools 
should be considered as recipients of public charity. This the 
town' rejected.""^ Niles in an editorial states' that a man, ''then 
a senator of the United States, declared, in my presence, and at 
many other times in the presence of others, that the govem- 
ment could never be properly administered until the laboring 
classes were reduced to a livelihood on herrings and potatoes."'^ 



"Martin. Erolution of ilie Mnxft. Piihlic Schoni Siistem, 143. 
^<> Niles' Register, (1816), 2: 2. 



71] 



72 BULLETIN OF THE UNU^RSITY OF WISCONSIN 



CHAPTER V 

THE ALIGNMENT OF INTERESTS 

The story of the development of our tariff system, for exam- 
ple, is the history of a struggle between different interests and 
sections within the United States as a whole ; likewise onr edu- 
cational advance, indirectly modified by the influence of prog- 
ress in one state upon that in another, was, and is, the result- 
ant of the conflict of interests — economic, social, religious and 
racial — wuthin the different states. The bitterness of the strug- 
gle is augmented 'where great diversity of interests exist. We 
must look, as in the study of our tariff' history, to the motives 
which actuated groups of men, rather than particular men. 
The study of the actual alignment of interests has, of course, 
been to some extent anticipated in the last chapter. In study- 
ing these forces or influences we nmst consider them as abstract 
and impersonal. A given individual may be influenced by 
many more or less conflicting and antagonistic interests and de- 
sires. Imagine, for instance, a German-Lutheran wage-earner 
and non-tax-payer living in a city; his racial and religious bias 
would tend to produce a somewhat different attitude on the 
subject of free education from that which his economic and oc- 
cupational interests would tend to create. In other words, the 
individual is a focus of many more or less conflicting emotions, 
demands and ideals. Religious belief and inherited traits, 
particularly during a period of rapid industrial and social 
modification, often stand in opposition to the influence of oc- 
cupational or economic forces. The individual on account of 
his membership in conflicting groups may be first on one side 
and then on the other. His allegiance is determined by the 
strength of contending motives, and is necessarily altered by 
changes in his social environment, his occupation, economic en- 

[72] 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 



73 



vironiiioiit. and so on through a long list. The individual is 
more or less submerged in the mass. His views are biased and 
colored by the aims and ideals of the class to which he belongs, 
or the interests which he represents. 

The following classification of interests acting for and against 
the development of a system of tax-supported public schools 
mav be of assistance. 



For 
j\Ien considered as : 

Citizens of the Republic. 
"Workingmfen. 
Non-tax-pay ei^s'. 
Calvinists. 
Residents o'f cities. 



Against, or lukewarm; 
j\Ien considered as : 

Residents of rural districts. 

Tax-payers. 

Members of exclusive or ul- 
tra conservative classes. 

Lutherans, Quakers, etc. 

Possessing a mother tongue 
other than English. 

Proprietors of Private Schools 



Such an analysis does not signify that all workingmen were 
favorable to the public schools, or that all Germans, for example, 
Avere opposed to them. It indicates that the workingmen, as a 
class' during this period, stood for better educational facilities, 
and that the Germans, in the main, were unfriendly to an in- 
stitution which seemed to threaten the continuation of the use of 
their mother tongue. 

In the American nation which had recently achieved inde- 
pendence after a long and costly struggle, and had established 
a republican form of government, the good of the republic be- 
came almost a religion to the mass of the people. Pleas for 
education as the comeretone upon which good citizenship rests, 
strengthened because of the rising tide of foreign immigration, 
exercised a powerful influence. Practically e\ery argument con- 
sidered, in the last chapter, which was favorable to education ap- 
pealed to the man as a citizen, and three (2, 5 and 6) of the op- 
posing arguments also favorably impressed him. The citizens* 
belief in free institutions and in the desirability or the neces- 
sity of education in order to maintain them was balanced 
against the danger of infringing upon the liberty 

[731 



74 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

and the rights of the individual, through compulsory 
taxation for educational purposes. The arguments which 
urged that education diminished crime and poverty, and 
increased production, decreased the opposition of the taxpayer. 
Where the numerical strength of a religious sect, in a given dis- 
trict, was not sufficient to warrant the establishment of sectarian 
schools, the effect was, as a rule, to reduce the opposition to the 
public schools on the part of the members of sects who were, 
under other conditions, strongly arrayed against it. Similarly, 
the strength of the individual opposition of non-English-speak- 
ing settlers was' diminished wherever the concentration of this 
class of people was not particularly marked. It is perhaps un- 
necessary to consider further the position taken by different in- 
terests, except that of the cities and rural districts, and that of 
the workingmen. 

As early as 1799, the Mechanics' Association of Providence 
made a vigoroiLS demand for a system of public schools. In the 
same year the legislature of Rhode Island enacted a local option 
school law ; but only Providence availed itself of the law, and it 
was repealed by the votes of the remainder of the state in 1803.^ 
Three decades later, in the fall of 1829, the interest of working- 
men in the question of public education suddenly rose to a fever 
heat, and continued unabated during 1830. From that time it 
seemed gradually to diminish and in the forties very little is 
heard about education from the spokesman of the workers.- 
They were, during this later period, more interested in other 
pressing problems, of which the public land question was per- 
haps the most important. This ebb in the sentiment favoring 
public education appears to be due, in part, to the fact that 
the workers came to realize that education was not a panacea 
for all social ills; and to be partly due to the improvement in 
the school system during the decade of the thirties. That the 
workers remained firm believers in the desirability of a free 



1 Mayo, Rep't of Com. of Education, 1896-97, 784 et seq. 

MVhen the Worhiiuj Man's Adiwiitf (X. Y.I. edited by Ceo. II. Evans, first ap- 
peared on October ;U, 1829. it w.as wildly enthusiastic ou the subject of educa- 
tion. Evans declared that this was the one measure which would regenerate 
society. But when, after the publication had been discontinued for several years, 
a new series appeared (1844) under the .ioint editorship of Evans and 'John 
Windt. other prolilems attracted the editors' attention. 

[74] 



CARLTOX — ECONOMIC INFLUEXCES UPOX EDUCATION 75 

school is, however, adequately proven b}' the decisive referendum 
vote in New York State in 1850.^ 

Nevertheless, there is adequate evidence that the Working- 
men's parties of Philadelphia and New York, although they took 
up education as the chief plank in their platform, did not origi- 
.nate in a demand for better educational facilities for the masses.* 
That was a later development. It was taken up at a time when 
^agitation was rampant. The workers felt that they were suf- 
fering from grievious ills; and they were looking for a remedy. 
P'or 5'ears it had been impressed upon the public that education 
made for equality; that it was a prime essential in a free coim- 
try. In both New York and Pennsylvania the governors' mes- 
sages had repeatedly heralded this opinion. Nicholas Biddle in 
1810 had voiced this sentiment in an official report to the legisla- 
ture of Pennsylvania.^ New England men, like James' G. Car- 
ter, had been faithfully preaching the gospel of education. The 
trustees of the Public School Society, in a widely circulated re- 
port, had declared that "those who are without education must 
always be' a degraded caste. '"^ Finally came men like Robert 
Dale Owen and Geo. H. Evans teaching a still more radical doc- 
trine as to the efficacy and need of better educational facilities. 

Suddenly the workers became enthused on the subject. It 
spread like wildfire. Practically eveiy workingmen's meeting 



^ See latter part of this cliaiiter. 

* At a meeting of "meclianics and other workingmen" held in April, 1829. a 
committee of fifty was appointed to draft resolutions to be read at a later meet- 
ing. On October 19, 1S29. this committee made its report. While recognizing 
the fundamental importance of education they held that other reforms must first 
be adopted. This report may be found in the first issue of the M'nrl-in;/ .Ifo/j's 
Advocate, October 31, 1829. The preamble of the Mechanic's Union of Trade 
Associations of Philadelphia (1828) does not mention the subject of education, 
but does demand increased leisure time. See the Mcchionics' Free Press. October 
2.5. 1828. Similar sentiments are found in "An Address to the .Tonrneymen 
House Carpenters of Philadelphia" in Mechanies' Free Press, June 14, 1829. The 
Workingmen's Party in New York City has been said to have originated as the 
result of a demand for a mechanic's lien law. See Hammond, Political History 
of ^cir York, il: 330: and .Jenkins. .T. S., Historn of Political Parties in yew 
Yoric. 1: 309. But the first impulse seems to have been due to a demand for a 
greater amount of leisure time. See Morning Courier, (X. Y.). April 25, 1829 and 
April 30. 1829. 

sprinted in full in the M'orkiiui Man's Advocate, April 3. 1830: from the Me- 
chanics' Free Press. (I'hila). 

« 5,000 copies of this "Address to the Public" were printed and distributed Feb- 
ruary. 1829. Printed in full in P.ouiiie's Ifisltirif of the Puhlic School .Voc/cf// of 
J\'. v.. 110-1 is. 



[75] 



76 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

from Alhriny to AVilminyton and Charleston took up the cry; 
for one or two years few sets of resolutions were passed in work- 
ingmen's meetings which did not give a prominent place to a ' 
demand for educational reforms. AVhen, in the period 1833 to 
1836. union organization supplants the loose party associations, 
the demand is still continued; but the question of wages becomes 
uppermost. In Boston, where the school system was better or- 
ganized than elsewhere, the educational demand is not so prom- 
inent. In Rhode Island, the suffrage question overshadowed all 
else in the minds of the workingmen. 

In order to show the attitude of the wage earners, a few typi- 
cal resolutions and declarations from various' cities will be se- 
lected from the mass of such material. At a meeting of work- 
ingmen held in New York City in November, 1829, resolutions 
were adopted which Tead in part as follows : ' ' Resolved, that the 
most grievous species of inequality is that produced by inequal- 
ity in education, and that a national system of education and' 
guardianship which shall furnish to all children of the land, 
equal food, clothing and instruction at the public expense is the 
only effectual remedy for this and for almost every other species 
of injustice. Resolved, that all other modes of reform are, com- 
pared to this, particular, inefficient, or trifling."" Again among 
the resolutions adopted by a " General Meeting of Mechanics and 
"Working Men" of New York City, held December 29, 1829, are 
found the following: ''Resolved, that next to life and liberty, 
we consider education the greatest blessing bestowed upon man- 
kind. Resolved, that the public funds should be appropriated 
(to a reasonable extent) to the purpose of education upon a reg- 
ular system that shall insure the opportunity to every individ- 
ual of obtaining a competent education before he shall have ar- 
rived at the age of maturity."^ In an official communication 
from the Painters'' Society of the City and County of New York 
to the "Association for the Protection of Industry and the Pro- 
motion of National Education," is found this statement of opin- 
ion ; "We are therefore of opinion . ." . that the State should 
furnish throughout the land, at public expense, state institutions,. 



''Free Enquirer, (N. Y.), November 7,. 1829, 15. 
>^M'firl-iii;j Man's Admcdte, .January ]G, 1830. 



■16] 



C-VKLTOK — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 77 

where every yoimg citizen should be educated and maintained 
from youth to manhood, and where each should obtain (besides 
the various branches of a liberal education) a competent knowl- 
edge, of at least one trade or occupation, by which even Avhile 
completing his education, he may earn his living. ' '^ 

A Avorkingmen's meeting in Philadelphia on September 26, 

1829, adopted a preamble which contained the following clause : 
"No system of education, which a freeman can accept, has yet 
been established for the poor; whilst thousands of dollars of the 
public money have been appropriated for building colleges and 
academies for the rich."^° "The determined stand taken by the 
productive classes of the commimity of the city and county of 
Philadelphia, and in many other sections of the Union, to ao- 
eomplish the important object of a general and equal system, is 
beheld with emotions of heartfelt pleasure by every friend of 
liberty. "^^ At New Castle, Delaware, in 1830. an Association of 
"Workingmen was formed. In the preamble of their constitution 
the.y endorsed this sentiment : ' ' Let us unite at the polls and give 
our votes to no candidate who is not pledged to support a ra- 
tional system of education to be paid for out of the public funds, 
and to further a rightful protection to the laborer. "^- 

At an adjourned meeting of "Workingmen, IMechanics, and 
-others friendly to their interests," held in Boston, August 17, 

1830. it was resolved, "that the establishment of a liberal system 
of education, attainable by all. should be among the lirst efforts 
of every la'wgiver who desires the continuance of our national 
independence."^^ In its editorial address the Workingmen' s Ad- 
vocate and Practical Politician (Boston) used the same phrase- 
ology' regarding the duties of lawgivers.^* The committee on 
education appointed at a workingmen 's convention held in Bos- 
ton, October 2, 1833, recommended, in addition to facilities for 
elementar\' education, lectures to adults on political economy. 



^ Free Eur/tiirer, .January 9. ISoO. S:'.. 

"> 'Workinfi Man's Advocate. October 31. 1820. For other Pennsylvania meet- 
ings, ihith, February 13, 1830. 

" Quoted. ihUl., .January 30. 1830. from }frch((iiic.s' Free Press. 

'-Quoted, McMaster, Ac(juisition of Politicul, Social and Industrial Rif/hts, 107. 
See also. Delairare Free Press, May 22, 1830. 

'3 Boston Courier, August 28. 1S30. 

"Quoted. Boston Courier. March 11. 1831. 



:77] 



78 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

and a general system of education by means of manual labor 
schools ''free to all, at the expense of each State." It was also 
suggested that ministers ought "to enlighten the people on their 
true temporal interests. "^^ In an oration delivered before an 
association of trade unions in Boston, on July 4, 1834, Frederick 
Eobinson declared: "We are yet but a half -educated and half- 
civilized people. The few are educated in one-half their facul- 
ties, and the people in the other half. The many have been 
obliged to devote their whole time to bodily labor, while the 
powers of mind have been almost wholly neglected. "^^ Thus, 
he anticipated the more recent advocates of manual training. 
At a banquet given in the evening of the same day, one of the 
toasts was, "Manual labor schools — The salvation of our insti- 
tutions and the hope of the children of the poor."" 

A committee from the General Trades Union of Cincinnati^ 
Ohio, issued in 1836 an "Appeal to the Working Men of the- 
AVest, ' ' in which they state that their efforts will be directed to- 
ward elevating the condition of the "Working Man," and toward 
obtaining a "National System of Education."^® In 1835, the- 
workingmen of Washington in an enumeration of their demands, 
stated; "We ask for a universal system of education; for the 
abolishment of monopolies ; for the abolishment of imprisonment 
for debt; and for a just representation of all interests. These 
are the objects we ask, and all we ask. The charges that are 
made against us of agrarianism and a desire to strip from the 
rich the possessions they have acquired, or which have descended 
to them by inheritance, is as false as the spirit is despicable that 
niakes the charge."^'' In the first number of a western labor 
paper, the editor writes, "But what shall claim our particular 
attention 'will be a system of Public, Republican, Scientific, Prac- 
tical Education for the Poor as well as for the Eich, looking to 
the Treasury of the Nation for a part of the surplus revenue. 



'^ Proceedings of the Working Hen's Convention. Pamphlet in Atheneum li- 
brary. 

^" Rogers, E. H., Minority Rep't of Commissioners on Hours of Labor. ,l/«sis. 
HoKse Bill, yo. .',, 1H6T. 

'■ Ihid. 

'* The Washingtoniun, August 8. 18."^>0, 2. 

''^Address to the Mechanics of the District of Coluinhia. issued liy the Trades- 
Union of the D. of C. I'amphlet in tlie Library oif Congress. 



78] 



C.VKLTOX — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 79 

to carry it into ett'ect."-'* The National Laborer (Philadelphia) 
published by the "Working-men's National Society for the Diffu- 
sion of Useful Knowledge." informed the public that it would 
"advocate the establishment of a Universal Republican System 
of Education, knowing that to a want of Imowledge alone may 
be ascribed all the evils which infest society, and which bear 
particularly heavy on the productive classes."-^ 

In 1830 the ' ' Farmers '.]\Iechanicks ' and Workingraen 's ' ' party 
of New York held a state convention at Salina, and nominated 
Erastus Root for Governor. Among others, the convention gave 
its adherence to the following resolution, "Resolved, that a sys- 
tem of education more universal in its effects, is practicable, so 
that no child -in the republick, however poor, should grow up 
without an opportunity to acquire at least a competent English 
education ; and that the system should be adapted to the condi- 
tion of the poor both in the city and country."-- The Equal 
Rights party of the city and county of New York, which was in 
a measure the successor of the Workingmen's party, in 1837 
pledged itself "to procure a more extended, equal and conven- 
ient system of Common School Instruction."-" The letter of 
Hon. H. A. Muhlenberg to the workingmen of Philadelphia -* 
clearly indicates that the workingmen of that city w-ere deeply 
interested in education, in 1834-1836; and also it is good evidence 
that they 'were an important political factor at that time. 

The foregoing, together with statements in preceding chapters, 
is sufficient to establish the fact that the workingmen of the 
country were much alive to the benefits of a system of public 
schools', and that their influence was an important factor in has- 
tening the development of the system. This item in the pro- 
gram of the labor movement of the first half of last century is 
now generally accepted throughout the United States, and by all 
classes. The progress of the world has been, for centuries, to- 
ward the betterment of the working classes; it seems reasonable, 
therefore, to argue a priori that, if progress continues, the chief 



2'^ The Union and Jilcclianics' and Working Men's Advocaie,, Inclianapoli^, Ind. 
Quoted in ^Xorldng Man's Advocate, .Tune 11, 1831, 3. 
2' 2>'a1ional Lahorer, March 20, 1836, 1. No. 1. 
" The Crafts)nan, Rocliester. Soptember 4. 1S30. 

^^ Farmei-'s and Mcchanirs!' Jnitmol, Alexander, X. Y., November 4. 1837. 
=« Quoted in ch. 4. 

[79] 



80 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

items in the program of the working people and non-propertv 
owTiers of one generation will be accepted in the next, by society 
as a whole. As long as progress means the uplift of the workers, 
so long will their program rather than that of the business or 
professional man represent progress. The latter acts as a fly- 
wheel which steadies progress, and prevents disaster; but they 
stand for controlling or modifying, not impelling, forces. This 
view is particularly illuminating in studying the educational 
development of our period. In the cities, a large proportion of 
the people were workingmen and small taxpayers: and in the 
cities the need of educational facilities was most clearly urgent; 
and better opi^ortunities were offered for carrying on an agita- 
tion. But the workingmen 's zeal in the cause of universal edu- 
cation came down to him from the traditions and experience of 
the past; and was kept alive and made more intense by the labors 
and exhortations of the leaders of the humanitarian movement. 
With the development of the factory system, the problem of 
•child labor assumes a threatening form on the horizon of the 
educational and industrial world. Before the factory era, at 
certain periods of the year there was little work for the children 
at home. This time was utilized, in many sections, for school 
work. With the rise of the cities and the growth of factories, the 
children began to be sent out of the home to work. Industry 
lost much of its seasonal character; and. if the children were 
sent to school, a reduction of the family income was, apparently, 
the direct and measurable result. The question of education now 
became immediately and directly a factor in the household econ- 
omy of the workingman. The inevitable tendency, in many in- 
stances, was to slight education, to mortgage the future for the 
present ; immediate concrete earnings looked larger and more in- 
viting than future indefinite opportunities for the children of 
the family. The interests of the mill-owner and of the poor, 
lazy, or short-sighted Avorkman were miited as to the desirability 
of child labor. The phenomenon of child-labor caused a certain 
class of workingmen to become less' insistent in their demands 
for educational facilities. Child-labor in factories spelled lack 
of education for the workers. Seth Luther in drawing his 
gloomy picture of the evils of child-labor and of excessively long 
hours of work, compared the position of the workingmen to the 

[80] 



aVRLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 81 

situation of a horse whose master was asked if he ever fed him. 
"Fed him, m)w that's a good 'uii; why he's got a bushel and a 
half of oats at home, only he 'aint got no time to eat 'um. "-^ 
This told the .story of the working-man's opportmiity to get an 
education in the mill town of Xew England in the thirties. 

The intluenee of prosperity and demand for child workers was 
disastroiLs' to school attendance. For example, in 1820, over 
5,000 pupils were on the rolls of the public schools of Philadel- 
phia.-'' But as the country began to recover from the effects of 
the crisis of 1819, the demand for child labor increased with the 
result that in 1821 less than 3,000 were in the schools of that city ; 
and the school authorities called for legislative action. "In 
1822 the attendance was 450 less than in 1821, and in 1823 was 
less than half what it had been in 1820."-' Nearly a score of 
years later, the following testimony was given as to child-labor 
in Connecticut. "The comparative cheapness of the labor of 
females, and of children, where it can be resorted to at all, has 
led to its excessive introduction into factories, to the exclusion 
as far as possible, of the more costly labor of men. . . . 
One thing is clear from the experience of the past, both at home 
and abroad, that about such establishments will always be gath- 
ered a large number of parents, who either from defective educa- 
tion in themselves, or from the pressure of immediate want, or 
from the selfishness which is fostered by finding profitable em- 
ployment for their children do not avail themselves" ,of the ad- 
vantages of free schools.-*' "Where the factor}^ system exists with 
its regularity of operation througrhout the year, the maintenance 
of a public school system is not alone sufficient. It must be sup- 
plemented by laws restricting child-labor and by compulsory 
education laws. Such enactments are difficult of passage, in 
many eases, because of the attitude of the workingman himself, 
particularly where organized labor is not strong. In certain 
states where manufacture is just springing into prominence and 



-'^ AfUlross. Ediicciiiin af WorJciiifimcn . (18.'^2). 

=8 77k>v/ Aiintinl lirp't of ControUer.i of Public Schools of the First School Dis- 
trict of the State of Peuiisi/lranid, 4. Quoted McMaster, 5: .S59. 

" McMaster. 5: .SGO. 

'^ First Annual Rcp't of the Sec. (Hrnrii Barnard) of the Board of Common 
School Commissioners of Conn.. May. 1K3'.». (Juoteil in Conn. Common School 
Journal, 1: 106. 

6 [81] 



82 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OP WISCONSIN 

importance, the problem which faced New England three-quar- 
ters of a century ago is now being re-solved. In several of the 
southern states which are now entering the industrial field, the 
evils of child-labor are great, — equal to those of which Luther so 
bitterly complained. One recent observer remarl^s, "the inter- 
est of the cracker, the preacher, the overseer, the superintendent, 
the president, and the stockholder are so involved that they can- 
not see the truth. "-^ The individual workingman is a prey to 
conflicting interests in regard to the question of educating his 
children ; but his organization now, as in the earlier period, stands 
for education and against child labor which deprives the child of 
its opportunity to attend school, or to live the normal, healthy 
life of a child. 

This period which was distinguished by the development of the 
industrial town, marks the rise of the urban school. The city 
then assumed the educational leadership ; development in educa- 
tion during the nineteenth century was chiefly directed and con- 
ditioned by the needs of urban life and by the changes in indus- 
trial methocLs. Town and city life coupled with the develop- 
ment of the factory system or of an intensified system of domes- 
tic industry, deprived the child of opportunity for home instruc- 
tion as to the practical affairs of life, and removed him from con- 
tact with nature and diversified industry. The city child lived 
in crowded quarters, and Avas forced constantly to associate with 
a heterogeneous ma&s' of young'sters. He could work as a wage- 
earner outside or even inside the home, go to school, or run the 
streets. Concentration of population apparently multiplied the 
evils of ignorance and poverty; division of labor and increasing 
specialization of industry tended to deprive the child of invalu- 
able training in regularity and industry. It was assumed by 
the leaders of the educational renaissance that intellectual edu- 
cation alone would remedy the difficulty. The effect of changed 
environment and modified home conditions due to growth of cities 
and innovations in industry was not as yet understood. The 
manual labor schools which flourished for a short space of time 
were concrete results of a partial recognition of the necessity for 



"'Hubbard, Amfricati Fcdfratiniiist. April. I'.Ki.j. 

[82] 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 83 

a close I'oniiet'tioii between intellectual and manual labor; but 
the time was not yet ripe. City life and industrial specializa- 
tion had not as yet assumed sulificient importance in our national 
life. Thirty or forty years after the. close of our period came 
the triumph of the principle of manual training, although, even 
today, many intelligent persons deny or minimize its educational 
value. In the thirties, purely intellectual education was advo- 
cated, except by the communists, as the magic wand which would 
arrest the progress of the wave of juvenile crime, transform the 
weak and erring boy into the good citizen, perpetuate the repub- 
lic, train the efficient wx)rker, and instill the ideals of America 
into the child of the immigrant. 

In the cities the effects of the new industrial, home and social 
life which the industrial evolution of this period ushered in, 
were fii"st and most markedly felt. Eeformers and the mass of 
the people of the cities turned with an almost child-like faith to 
the school, — the common school of the three R's. This was per- 
haps a groping in the dark, a failure to recognize changing con- 
ditions, a measurement of present necessities according to worn- 
out and obs(jlete standards ; but it led to a step in advance. We 
of today know that the educators of that day did not grasp the 
significance of the industrial evolution going on before their eyes ; 
but we are repeating the blunder year after year. Educational 
progress is still lagging far behind industrial advance. The 
modern movement for free public schools originated in the cities ; 
and improvements in educational methods and curricula first 
find a place in the city schools, because here the necessity is great- 
est and most noticeable. Indeed, the educational conservatism 
and apathy of the rural districts during the period (1820-1850) 
is accomited for chiefly by two circumstances. The industrial 
changes did not vitally effect the indastrial and home life of the 
farmer of this period ; and in the country nearly every man paid 
direct taxes. The added expense of schools, or of improvements 
in .schools, was visible to all and felt by all. xinother phe- 
nomenon which tended to increase the conservatism of the rural 
population in Xew England is familiar to the student of the 
more recent period of our national life, namely, the drawing of 
the best blood of the rural districts into the cities or toward the 

[83] 



84 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

West.^" This migration began early to affect the attitude of the 
rural districts of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island 
as to educational advance ; and by 1850, its effect was not negli- 
gible in the state of New York. In the Pennsylvania contest of 
1834 and 1835, however, this phenomenon need not be consid- 
ered; and in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois up to the end of the 
period, the pioneer element was still predominant in the rural 
districts. 

The antagonism of the rural districts of Rhode Island to the 
law of 1799-1800, and of those of Massachusetts to the laws of 
1826 and 1836, have already been mentioned."^ In Pennsylvania, 
Philadelphia provided for practically free schools at public ex- 
pense several years before the passage of the free school law 
of 1834. But it is to New York that we must turn for the most 
clear-cut and spectacular exhibition of the antagonism between 
urban and rural districts on the question of free tax-supported 
schools. In ]\Iarch, 1849, the New York Legislature passed an 
*'Act establishing free schools throughout the State." These 
schools were to be free to all children between the ages of five 
and twenty-one. Local taxation was authorized to supplement 
the state tax. A referendum was granted: and the vote stood 
249,872 for, and 91.951 against, the enactment of such a law. 
In New York county, the vote was 21.052. in favor of; against 
1,313; in Richmond county, 1.437 to 22 respectively; and in 
Kings county, 8.549 to 159. The foregoing three counties were 
strictly urban comities, including and surrounding New York 
City and Brooklyn. Albany county, containing the city of 
Albany, gave 8,604 votes for, and 1,806 against, the proposed 
law; Erie county, containing the city of Buffalo, 8,800 to 1,542 
respectively. Only four counties gave majorities against the 
bill : these were the rural counties of Tompkins, Chenango, Cort- 
land, and Otsega.^- As soon as the attempt to put the law into 
actual operation was made, however, great hostility was mani- 
fested. 

In the next year, 1850, the (lue&tion of the repeal of the law 
•was referred to the people. Forty-two out of a total of fifty- 



^ See Martin. Erohitiii\i of the M(isi<. I'lihUc ^chodl Siifitcm. 20.3. 

'' See also the section on "The South" in eh. 0. 

32 Randall, History of the Common SchoC'l System of N. Y., 74 et seq. 

[84] 



C-VRLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 85 

nine counties now favored the repeal ; but the majority given 
by the seventeen was sufficiently large to prevent this retrograde 
step. The vote was 209.346 against, and 184,308 for, the repeal. 
The seventeen counties which were against the repeal are the 
following: Albany, Columbia, Dutchess, Erie, King's, Mont- 
gomery, New York. Onondaga, Putnam, Queens, Renssalaer, 
Kichmond, Rockland, Schenectady, Seneca, Ulster and West- 
chester. •'■' New York. Kings, Queens, and Richmond coimties in- 
cluded New York City, Brooklyn and suburbs ; Albany county, 
the city of Albany ; Erie county, the city of Buffalo ; Renssalaer 
county, the city of Troy ; Schenectady county, the city of Schen- 
ectady; Onondago county, the city of Syracuse; and Columbia,. 
Dutchess, Putnam, Rockland, Ulster and Westchester counties 
border on the Hudson river, and lie between New York and 
Albany. The voice of the cities was unmistakable. Although 
the legislature did not fully carry out the 'will of the majority 
as represented by this referendum, and although the rate bill 
in a modified form was not finally abolished until several years 
later, this vote may be said to have definitely settled the matter 
of tax-supported schools in the state of New York. The Neiv 
York Tribune, in commenting on this referendum, said: "the 
cities have fairly tried free schools as the country has not; our 
approval of them is founded on knowledge, while the country's, 
hostility is iii good part founded on prejudice."^* 

Before the eye and the mind are distracted by the details which 
a study of the different states will present, let us examine briefly 
the outline picture which is now before us. The second great 
period in our educational development foUo'ws closely upon the 
rapid growth of industrial center, the increase of manufacture^ 
and of mutual interdependence due in this case to the birth of 
the modern factory system and the specialization of industry. 
Preceding the educational revival of the second quarter of the 
nineteenth century the prevailing type of school was rural 
rather than urban. Horace Mann "stands in history as the rep- 
resentative of the urban school." It is important to notice that 
at the moment when the theories of natural rights, laissez fairer 



3-' Ihifl. 

3* Editorial, .V. Y. Trihiun , November 2S. IS.'jO. 



"85" 



86 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

individualism, are apparently at liigh-water mark, we find a 
growing demand for protection for the manufacturing classes 
and for tax-supported free schools for all classes, and an increas- 
ing tendency away from an extremely decentralized administra- 
tive system. These three important manifestations of this 
period of social unrest are not mutually unrelated phenomena. 
They are the natural fruit of specialization and concentration 
of industry and of the development of improved methods of 
transportation; in short, of the introduction of modern indus- 
trial and commercial methods. They mark the widening and 
intensifying of the sphere of common interests. Urban commun- 
ities demand an increase in collective activity over that required 
by rural districts. 

The religious motive for the support of the connnon schools 
which had been predominant in colonial times, has no'vv dropped 
out of sight. With the growing heterogeneity of population, 
the elements which fostered the school system in the early history 
of New England lost interest, and turned to the private schools. 
This period (1820-1850) marks the rise of the influence of man- 
ufacturing interests and of the city in the affairs of the nation. 
The cities and the workingmen looked to economic, civic and 
ethical motives. The prevention of class differentiation and the 
preservation of free institutions are the two arguments in which 
these two overlapping elements' of our population saw the chief 
justification of tax-supported schools. The elements of our popu- 
lation 'whose agitation and political power forced the general 
acceptance of the doctrine of free education for all. were pushed 
to the front and made powerful factors in American life as a 
result of mechanical inventions and industrial progress. The 
visible and honored leaders were humanitarians whose zeal was 
developed by a genuine desire to alleviate the suffering and 
misery which the rapid groiwth of towns, workshops and fac- 
tories 'was producing. The point which this analysis throws 
into clear view is one which has been, hitherto, almost uniformly 
overlooked or neglected, namely, that the real underlying forces 
with which we are chiefly concerned are industrial. Educational 
history during the first half of the ninteenth century must l)e 
studied by the aid of the light given us by industrial history. 

[86] 



CARLTON" — ECONOMIC INPI-UENCES UPON EDUCATION 87 

The inventor and the entrepreneur guided the steps of the edu- 
cator and the legislator. 

In short, the power loom, the slide-rest, steam and water 
power, the canal, the railroad and the blast furnace have in- 
creased the size and the importance of the cities, added to the 
numbers who toil for wages and built up an important manu- 
facturing interest. The consequent displacement of the political 
and social center of gravity developed that unique and powerful, 
although not numerically strong, class called humanitarians. 
The frontier has placed the ballot in the hands of the adult 
white male population; and the increasing mobility of popula- 
tion has softened the animosities' of sectarian and racial diifer- 
ences. Directed and aided by the humanitarian leaders, the 
workingmen and the cities have effectively used 'the weapon 
placed in their hands by the men of the frontier. The agitation 
for tax-supported schools which gradually acquired strength 
during the first fifteen years of the period, came to fruition 
during the latter decade and a half. The educational Ideal of 
the Puritan has receded into the background, and a new demo- 
cratic one conceived during this period of unrest and social 
flux, has replaced it. Each section or each state has its own 
peculiar trend of industrial and educational advance. In order 
to complete the picture and to note whether the details harmonize 
with the outlines already sketched, a detailed study of several 
representative states must be undertaken. 



[87] 



88 BULLETIN OP THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 



CHAPTER Yl 

PROGRESS IN DIFFERENT STATES 

Massachusetts 

In Massachusetts, as we have seen, the principle of tax-sup- 
ported schools was firmly established. It came down from the 
act of 1647. In this state and in Connecticut, the old traditions 
as to education never completely lost their hold. There was, 
however, a modification in regard to the relation of the state to 
education. The early New England statutes emphasized the 
right of the state to compel the father to provide education for 
his children. The view which was generally accepted before the 
end of this period 1820-1850, placed the emphasis upon the 
duties of the state. The latter should not only demand the 
education of all children; but must also provide schools and 
teacher's.^ The following newspaper clipping gives an idea 
of the condition of the schools of Boston at the end of the first 
decade of our period. "The system of education here, sup- 
ported from the municipal treasury, takes the child at four 
years of age, and carries it through a course of education, till 
it is fourteen, or older if a pupil at the Latin or High School. 
The range of instruction is from the A. of the alphabet, through 
the sciences, and to a knowledge of the Greek and Latin lan- 
guages. The number of Public Schools in Boston is 68 . . . 
and the estimated expense, for the current year, is $52,500. The 
assumption of this duty by the city, secures the tuition of all 
children, while it relieves parents from much direct care and 
expense. It increases the taxes, but the addition to rate-bill is 
inconsiderable, compared with "^^•hat the preceptor's charges 
would be against the parents."- 



^Pen-in, Compulsory Education. (Univ. of Chicago, 1896.) 

^Nen: Enyland Palladium and Commercial Adrertlscr. .July 10. 1829. 

[88] 



CAELTOX — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 89 

The struggle for better education in ^Massachusetts was two- 
fold: centralization of authority in order to overcome the glar- 
ing evils of the district system, and the establishment of free 
public high schools. One serious obstacle standing jn the way 
of the improvement in the schools of Massachusetts was alleged 
to be "the little interest taken by the most enlightened part of 
the community ... in the condition of the common 
schools, from the circumstances that their own children are re- 
ceiving education in private schools at their ovni expense."^ A 
state of afifair.s developed similar to that which is found where 
various religious denominations support schools of their own. 
The influence ,of the private schools of this state during the 
twenties and thirties was considerable. "The amount paid for 
tuition in private schools, for one-sixth of the children of the 
state, is $328,000 ; while the amount raised by taxes for the edu- 
cation of the other five-sixths in public schools is $-465,000, and 
the amount voluntarily contributed to the public schools is 
$48,000."-' "The district school of the central village . . . 
often is . . . the poorest in the whole territory. "^ " In 1830 
returns from 131 towns in jMassachusetts, showed that the an- 
nual amount paid in those towns for public schools was $170,- 
342.96; and the number of pupils, 12,393.*' There was urgent 
need of improving the public schools; but the friends of the 
private schools were hostile and powerful. 

The fight which centered around the legalizing of the high 
school presented many features similar to those found in New 
York and Pennsylvania in regard to the tax-siipported ele- 
mentary school. The opposition between rural and urban dis- 
tricts was clearly marked; and the rural forces were reinforced 
by the friends of the private schools. "In towns containing 
a village center, growing popuhnis under the new order of 
things, a struggle began between the village and the outskirts, 
often protracted for years. The movement for the town high 
school was in most cases an occasion for an annual tug of war.'"" 



^Aorth American Review, (1838), 47: 303. 

*imd.. 304. 

'^Ihid.. 3(1.5. 

'NUes' Reyistcr, 38:401. 

'Martin, Evolution of the Mans. Common School Sijstem, 203. 



[89] 



90 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

The law of 1826 made obligatory upon the towns of Massachu- 
setts, the establishment of a high school, to be open ten months 
in the year. The two elements of opposition soon succeeded in 
securing a partial repeal of the act. In 1836, the law Avas re- 
enacted in its original form; but again in IS-IO, it was prac- 
tically repealed. In 1848, however, it was again placed upon 
the statute books.'' 

The recognition of the growing evils of child labor in factories 
found expression in the law which 'went into effect April 1, 1837. 
The law required three months schooling in the twelve months 
preceding the child's employment by a manufacturing estab- 
lishment. Of its' enforcement, Horace Mann wrote; "Com- 
paratively speaking there seems to have been far greater dis- 
regard of the law by private individuals and by small corpora- 
tions, especially where the premises are rented from year to 
year, or from term to term, than by the owners and agents of 
large establishments."-' In general, a like situation obtains 
today in regard to apprenticeship. The larger establishments 
are most -keenly alive to the desirability of the establishment of 
systems of apprenticeship. 

The peculiar and distinctive feature of the development of 
the school system of Massachusetts is the strength of tradition 
and habit. Conservatism and radicalism in education joined 
hands on the proposition that free tax-supported elementary 
schools were desirable. The habit of paying taxes for the sup- 
port of public schools was formed and fixed. Here the past 
for other reasons' than those advanced by the then present, and 
acting according to different motives from those which actuated 
the men of the time under consideration, had removed the great- 
est obstacle in the path of educational evolution in this period. 

Connecticut 

The development of the Connecticut school system up to 1800 
was not greatly dissimilar from that of IMassachusetts' ; and the 
industrial development during our period was similar in these 



Ihi'l.. 198. 

Mann, Report for 1S39 in Life and Works of H. Mann, 3:5. 

[90] 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 91 

two New England states. The distinctive feature in Connecti- 
cut seems to be her large educational fund. Like Massachusetts, 
she acquiesced in the proposition of sui)portin<i- schools through 
taxation, until the fund derived from the sale of lands practi- 
cally removed the necessity of local taxation. While in 1800 
the school system of Comiecticut was equal, if not superior, to 
that of ]Mavssacliusetts ; in 1850 the latter state was unquestion- 
ably in advance educationally of her sister state. 

"Prior to 1795, with the exception of the proceeds of the sale 
of seven new townships in the Western part of this state [Con- 
necticut] in 1733 and certain smns of money due on excise on 
goods in 1765. which were divided among the towns, and the 
interest of the same, appropriated forever, to the support of 
the Common Schools, the expense of public schools fell upon 
the inhabitants of the town, or upon the parents and guardians' 
of the children who attended them. Up to this time it was rare 
to meet with a native of Connecticut who could not read or 
write, so that the provisions thus made, and the care with which 
the money was applied, met the wants of the connnunity. In 
1795. the avails of the sale of Western land, now forming part 
of Ohio, amounting to $1,200,000 was forever appropriated to 
the support of Common Schools, and in 1818, this legislative 
distinction was confirmed, with the sanction of Constitutional 
provision."^" But the writer complains of the "criminal 
apathy" regarding the public schools, and of the increase of 
private schools, although at that time (1838), the school fund 
amounted to nearly $2,000,000. 

Testimony is not lacking to prove that the existence of this 
unusually large school fund, produced a feeling of apathy in 
regard to public education in Connecticut, and that, unfortu- 
nately, it undermined the habit, which was formed during the 
early colonial period, of supporting the public schools through 
direct local taxation. An apparently beneficent influence soon 
proved to be detrimental. By 1838, it was recorded that "the 
schools had ceased to command the confidence of many intel- 
ligent citizens, and 'were no longer the main reliance of the 



^'> Repoi-t of ihe Joint Relcct Committee on Common Schools in Conn. Com. 
School Jo-urn.. 1838, 1:2-3. 

[91] 



92 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

Miiole eomiiiimity for elementary instruction. . . . Taxa- 
tion for school purposes had not only ceased to he the cheerful 
habit of the people, but was regarded as something' foreign and 
anti-democratic. The supervision of the schools had become in 
most societies a mere formality . . . and the whole system 
seemed struck with paralysis."" Aii article in the North Ameri- 
can Review for April, 1823, states: "Taxation for schools be- 
ing infrequent, must be borne with impatience ; and if some 
school societies increase the school money by tax, the practice is 
gradually discontinued, and will soon cease entirely. As to 
time then, we do not find that anything has been gained by the 
school from the operation of the fund. If some schools con- 
tinue longer, each year, others are brought sooner to a close, the 
amount of time, through the whole, being not materially 
varied.''^- A connnittee of citizens of New Jersey investigated 
the Connecticut system in 1828; and reported "that the Con- 
necticut system does produce the result of repressing the liberal- 
it3^ of the people toward this object of benevolence,^^ and leads 
them into the habit of relying upon the public money, to the 
neglect of education in most of their districts, during a con- 
siderable part of the year, we have the best reasons for believ- 
ing. "^* 

In 1837, Henry Barnard estimated that 10,000 children of 
the rich and educated were receiving good instruction in private 
schools at an expense greater than that appropriated for the 
other 60,000 or 70,000 children of the state.^" 

As early as 1813, a law was enacted requiring the proprietors 
of manufacturing establishments to see that the children em- 
ployed by them were instructed in reading, writing and arith- 
metic; "and that due attention was paid to their morals."^" 
But in the first report of the newly formed Board of Commis- 
sioners of Common Schools, Mr. Barnard complains that 
this law is not well enforced. "It will be but poor glory for 



^^ Barnard's Jmirntih (IS.jSt, 5: J. 54. 

'2 Quoted Baniard'ii ./ounuil, dS.jS). 5: 120. For amount of annual dividends 
from school fund, see ihid.. 6:425; 1820, $58,439.36; 1850, $136,505.50. 
" The use of the word "benevolence"' should be noticed. 
^* Barnard's Journal, 5: 1.":^. 
^■'IhUl.. 5: 153. 
''■■Ibid.. 5: 123. 

[92] 



CAELTON" — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 93 

Connecticut to be able to point to her populous and industrious 
manufacturing villages as the workshops of the Union, . . . 
if they are also to become blots upon her intelleetual and moral 
character. "'' The same writer stated that non-attendance upon 
any school in the cities was confined chiefly to four classes', (a) 
"The children of the reckless, the vicious, and the intemperate." 
. . . not readily amenable to the influence of public opin- 
ion; [h) "The children of the poor, the ignorant and the negli- 
gent." These can be reached by a vigorous and healthy public 
opinion; (c) "Apprentices and clerks," who are hurried into 
offices and workshops from haste of parents or from necessity 
and (d) colored children.^'* 

Educational progress in Connecticut was extremely slow. As 
late as 1855 in an official report the state superintendent of com- 
mon schools declared that "a vast number of children among 
us are growing up without that intellectual and moral culture 
necessary to make them industrious, respectable, la»w-abiding 
citizens. "^'■' So while Massachusetts, with a comparatively in- 
significant school fund pressed steadily forward, Connecticut 
"marked time." Two reasons may be given for the marked 
divergence, during our period, in the school systems of these 
two New England states, which, up to 1800, were practically a 
unit as to educational policy and progress. (1) The smaller 
percentage of urban and wage-earning population in Connec- 
ticut; (2) the 'weakening of the habit of paying local taxes for 
educational purposes in Connecticut, on account of the large 
school fund derived from the sale of public lands. 

Rhode Island 

In this unique little New England state, no union had ever 
existed between church and state, and therefore the maintenance 
of the connnon school had not been considered to be a true func- 
tion of the state. Rhode Island had almost completely broken 
aw^av from the New England ideals. Accordingly, before the 



''Coiiii. fdiii. Silidiil./iiiini.. (Isr'.Sl, 1: ItlO. 

'» Ibiil.. 1: n;.".. 

"Quoted. Rriiort of CoiiniiisKiuiicr of Edin-nl'K.n. i IS'.iT-'.is i . 1: rjo:' 

[93] 



94 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

opening of our era, to compel a citizen of that commonwealth 
"to educate his children would have heen an invasion of his 
rights as a "tree-horn Ehode Islander, which would not be en- 
dured." In Rhode Island there was no precedent for taxation 
for educational purposes; no "cheerful habit" of tax-paying^ 
for this important purpose had ever been formed. This fact, 
together with the early peculiar economic and social conditions 
in the colony, necessarily shaped the course of its educational 
development quite differently from that of other New England 
states. The force of public sentiment was distinctly unfavor- 
able to tax-supported public schools. 

Attention was previously called to the struggle, culminating 
in the Dorr war, which led to the extension of the suffrage ; and 
to the rapid development of the public school system thereafter. 
A factor in this sudden change of sentiment as to public schools, 
which was not then alluded to, seems to have been due to a re- 
action among the conservative and propertied classes. Quite 
likely a picture of the French Revolution arose before their eyes. 
"The cost of the conflict [Dorr War] taught the most parsimo- 
nious, that it was cheaper in a pecuniary respect to prevent than 
to defray the expenses incident to an uninstructed populace. 
. . . Under these circumstances, the attention of many of the in- 
fluential citizens w^as directed to the situation of the common 
schools, and the impression seems to have been general and 
deeply fixed, that no one interest was half so vital as this to the 
prosperity of the commonwealth, and perhaps even to the secur- 
ity of the new government."-" In other words extra-legal or 
unconstitutional nets — the show of force — on the part of 
the masses of the ])eople caused the conservative interests 
to de-nand public schook', to unite with the wage-earners 
and r,on-tax-payers on this piopositiou. "Vv'hen, ,;herei;ore 
they were rejoicing in their escape from the recent convulsion, 
and looking forward with that wise forecast which its fresh-re- 
membered terror might well inspire, it is not surprising that all 
the active spirits of the time from the oldest to the youngest, 
should have deemed this enterprise an object worthy of their 
attention, and should have entered upon the work with char- 



'yorth American Review (1848), «7: 247-48. 

[94] 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 95 

acteristic enerizy. Tlie iiianiifactnrers might well tremble in 
the presence of the large masses of nninstrueted population 
which were gro-tving around them, and see it written everywhere 
with a distinctness Avhieh none could comprehend so well as they 
that it was only ]\v educating this population that their business 
would prosper and their lives and property be secure."-^ 

The story Avhich this state unfolds is certainly suggestive. 
J^hode Island by tradition and habit was averse to tax-sup- 
ported schools. Suddenly she developed from a predominately 
commercial and agricultural state to a preeminently manufactur- 
ing state. The sharpest and most bitterly contested struggle 
for the extension of the sutfrage which is found in American 
historv^, took place in this little state; and within a decade after 
its conclusion the tax-supported school became a generally ac- 
cepted institution. In 18-48, the rate bill was aboli.shed ; but 
not until nearly a sco^e of years later did it disappear in New 
York and Connecticut. 

New York 

Passing from New England, many factors in our problem are 
greatly modified. The Puritan regime never obtained a firm 
foothold outside of New England, although its influence was 
potent. New York is a state much larger than any one of the 
three New^ England states ju&t considered. City and rural dis- 
tricts are widely separated; and her population was, even during 
this period, cosmopolitan. "Wide differences of religious belief 
existed side by side. The past does not play as important a role 
as in New England; social conditions are more mobile. In 1812 
a law w^as enacted granting state aid to the public schools of the 
state. In order to receive the appropriation, each county was 
required to raise by a tax an amount equal to that appropriated 
]jy the state. The office of state superintendent of schools was 
also created. From time to time the provision.s' of this law were 
modified. Later the counties 'were required to raise an amount 
by a tax equal to the amount apportioned to them from the state 
funds; and the local school districts were authorized to levy a 

[95] 



96 BULLETIN" OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

tax for building and maintenance of school buildings, supplies, 
fuel, etc. The remaining amoimt necessary for compensation 
of teachers and other expenses was raised by a rate bill. Each 
person paid according to the number of children he had in 
school, indigent persons excepted.-- This was in brief the basis 
of legislation prior to the Free School Act of 1849. The schools 
of the city of New York were not included in the state system 
until 1842, when the first board of education was established. 

"During this period [1813-1837], while the common schools of 
New England, including ]Massachusetts and Connecticut, were 
under a partial eclipse, the common school was largely intro- 
duced and fostered by New England influence in the state of 
New York, and gradually improved and became more deserving 
the confidence of the people."-^ The following table-^ clearly 
presents' to the eye, this steady development. 

No. of Children 

school districts taught 

Dates. leportiiiii-. therein. 

1S16 2,755 14n.lfl6 

1820 ..: 5,7fi3 271,877 

18-M 7.382 377.0.34 

1826 7.773 425,350 

1830 8.609 480.959 

1833 9,60U 494,959 

1840 570,000 

1845 (est) 700,000 

The following tal)le-" shows the imi)ortance of rate-bills ia 
maintaining the pul)lic school system of this state. 

Total salar.v ' .\inr. raised 

of all teachers li.v rate 

Dates. of state. hill. 

1N31 J5S6,.520 CO ; $346,807 00 

1844 509,376 97 

1845 99"'. 222 00 447.566 00 

1847 1,058,814 64 462,840 44 

This is the key to an understanding of the bitterness of the 
struggle of 1849-1850. 

Although the school system was being gradually extended and 
improved, it was very imperfect and inadequate. "The exten- 
sion of the free schools in the state is progressing moderately; 



-- l^tiittitcs of the State of Xnr York rrhitiiifi to tin- Coiiniion Schools. (Issued 
by tne Supt. of Common Schools, Alban.v. 1847.) 

-■•Mayo. Rei)'t of Coin, of Education. (1807-98). 1: 4:^7. 

" Compiled from ahstract of a rep't of the siipt. of common schools of X. Y., 
given in Entitnn. Md. Star. June 27. 1826; and from Randall, Common School .S)/.s- 
tem of the State of Xnr Yorl:. CIS.")!). 

25 Randall, ."U, :'>C. 47 and .".8. 

[96] 



CiVULTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 97 

and laws are passed at nearlj^ every session of the legislature, 
providing' for their establishment in populous and wealthy vil- 
lao-es: while the poorer and less populous districts, in the same 
towns are left to struggle, from year to 3^ear, in the best way 
they can . . . sustaining a school perhaps only four 
months in the year to secure the next appointment of the public 
moneys."-*' The apathy and indifference of certain districts of 
the state were remarkable and discouraging. In 1841. it was 
ordered that one copy of a Common School Journal be sent to 
svery school district in the state of New York. "It is mortify- 
ing and painful to state what the truth of history requir&s' us 
to record, that it is within our personal knowledge that the 
trustees of many school districts refused to take from the post- 
office this excellent journal, . . . because they were un- 
willing to paj^ from the conunon funds of their respective dis- 
tricts the sum of one shilling a year for postage."-" As late 
as 1850. Superintendent Randall made the following appeal: 
"100,000 destitute children of penury and affliction are silently 
appealing to you [citizens of New York] for permission to enter 
the public common schools of your state, and to participate 
equally with their more fortunate brethren and sisters in the 
blerssings of education. "-- 

The peculiar educational situation in Ncav York City must 
not be overlooked in our study of the development of education 
in the Empire State. All preceding educational systenxs were 
destroyed bj' the military government of the Revolutionary 
period. Soon after the termination of the war and the evacua- 
tion of the city by the British troops, schools w^ere established 
by different religious denominations.-'' The non-sectarian Pub- 
lic School Society, which was mentioned in a preceding chapter, 
had for its object the establishment of "a free school in the city 
of New York for the education of such poor children as do not 
belong to, or are not provided for, by any religious' society."^" 



-''■ lirp-t of ^iiii'i (if Cnin»inii iichuojfi. (1S47K Quoted Banrtall. 07. 

=' Quoted. Lossing's Etniiirc titntr. 40.-., loot note: from nainmond. PoUticnl 
Hiatori/ of V. Y.. »: 22.".. 

'^Kew Yorl- Trihuuc. Octoher UC. 1850. 

29 I'almer. Thc.Xrir Yorlc Public School, (190.5), 11 et seq. 

*> Charter of the Society, Draper, The N. T. Common School System, 46; David 
Ilosack. Memoirs of De Witt Cliiitov, 101>-17.S. 

7 [97] 



98 BULLETIN OP THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

In 1813. the New York leg-jslature paasecl a special act providing 
for a distribution of public money, derived from the state school 
fund and from local taxation, among the church societies and 
other schools in the city of New York ; but in 1824, another act 
was passed giving the common council of the city the right to 
designate the "institutions and schools" which should receive 
the public money.^^ Soon after the passage of this act the re 
ligious societies were excluded from receiving a share of the 
public money; but they continued from time to time to demand 
a portion of these fimds for the support of their schools. 

After the matter of funds was decided in their favor, tht 
Public School Society began to charge a moderate tuition fee. 
During the first year (1826) of the experiment the fees 
amounted to $4.426.00 ; but in 1831 the receipts from this source 
were only $1,366.24.'- In February, 1829, the Society issued 
a long address to the public regarding the condition of education 
in the city. It was estimated that there were 24,200 children 
between the ages of five and fifteen years, living in New York 
City, who were not attending school. The number attending 
public schools was declared to be approximately 10,000 ; and the 
number attending private schools, 17.500. The ratio of scholars 
in schools to the total population was estimated to be one to 
seven. An earnest appeal was made for an increase in taxation 
so that the pay system might be abolished, and the efficiency of 
the system improved. "It is obvious from what we have already 
said," reads the address, "that these schools should be supported 
from public revenue, should be public property, and should be 
open to all, not as a charity, but as a matter of common right. ' '^^ 
A petition was widely circulated, and the aid of the common 
council obtained. The legislature w^as urged by the petitioners 
and the council to levy a tax of one-half of a mill upon the dollar 
on all property in the city. The legislature, however, only 
granted a tax ley>^ of one-eighth of one mill. In 1831, an' addi- 
tional tax levy Was authorized. As a result, in February, 1832, 
the schools of the Society were made absolutely free ; action in 
the matter w^^s, however, undoubtedly hastened by the diminu- 



31 Bourne. Hif<toni of the Puhlic Hclionl Hocitty, (1870), 404-G. 

s= Palmer, 68, 69. 

'"Quoted in full by Bourne, 110-118. 

[98] 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCxVTION 99 

tion in the auiouiit of the fees, and on account of the dissatis- 
faction manifested with the fee system. In 1832, steps were 
taken to establish infant schools.^* Twelve years later, there 
Avere 8,970 pupils enrolled in these schools. In the Avinter of 
1833-1834, evening schools for apprentices were first instituted.^" 
At the time when the workingmen 's agitation w'as at its height, 
the Public School Society was receiving additional funds', and 
was improving and extending its system. Yet, strange as it 
may appear, bearing in mind the extraordinary amount of en- 
thusiasm as to education, the attendance upon the schools of the 
Society was actually less in 1832 than in 1829. In 1833 and 
1834, the effect of the opening of infant schools' is very appar- 
ent.^® An historian of New York City, writing in 1853, of the 
period 1829 to 1836 approximately, states : "The energy and per- 
severance exhibited by the Public School Society secured for 
itself a large share of the public confidence and at the same time 
gave rise to increased interest in the cause of popular education. 
Almost the whole of the Common School Fund for the city was 
intrusted to the disposition of that society. . . . New 
schools were established. . . . Primary schools . . . 



■•* Tnese schools wore for thilclreu from two to six years of age. ^ 

25 Bourne, 157-59. 

•-•"The attendance upon the schools of the Society was, in 1820. 0.150; in 1830,. 
G.178: in 1831, 0.3::^: in 1832, 6,109: in 1833, 7,82(5; in 1834, 12,537; in 1835, 
17,318. Bourne, 32. In addition to the direct effect of the infant schools upon 
the increase in school attendance three other influences are worthy of notice. 
(1) Many older children had been kept out of school to care for the younger 
children. See for example, the report of a joint committee appointed by the- 
workingmen of I'hiladelj^hia, (1820) ; Delaware Free Press, March 13, 20 and 27, 
1830. The indirect effect of infant schools, therefore, would tend to increase 
the number of older children in the scheols. (2) In 1834, certain established 
schools for colored children, with an enrollment ot 1.608 pupils, were placed in 
charge of the Public School Society. (3) In 1833 and 1S.34. loose party asso- 
ciation began to be superceded by organized unions of workingmen. The effect 
of this change upon the educational situation is somewhat problematical : but 
union organization always opposes the influx of young workers into industry. In 
1834 and 1835 is found some consideration of the question of apprenticeship. 
The workers evidently began to realize that an abuse of the apprentice system 
tended to lower wages. The glass cutters of New York, in 1835, tried to limit 
the number of apprentices to be employed in a shop. The 2Ian, .Tune 17, 1835. 
See also ihiil.. .Tuly 25. 1834 ; Turn out of the Sailors. In order that the enthusi- 
asm of the workingmen for education may result in a tangible increase in school 
attendance . organization and legal enactments seem essential. Otherwise, in in- 
dividual cases, the desire for increased Income from the labor of children over- 
balances other motives which are more desirable from a social point of view. 



[99] 



100 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

were regarded by the public with much favor; and so rapidly 
were they multiplied that they soon outnumbered those for more 
advanced pupils."^' 

But opposition to the Society soon began to make itself mani- 
fest. If we may judge from the following open letter to the 
trustees, opposition was, in 1835, quite general in all parts of 
the city. The writer expresses great dissatisfaction regarding 
the work of the schools under the direction of the Society. 
"But there are thousands of people in this city who would 
acknowledge themselves imder infinite obligation to you if you 
would pocket the money, shut up the schools', and announce to 
the public your incompetence, your unfitness, and your utter 
inability to go through with the work you have undertaken. ' '^® 
Finally a bitter struggle was precipitated by the Roman Cath- 
olics who were growing in strength because of the increasing 
numbers of immigrants flocking into the city. 

The Catholics declared that the funds to be devoted to educa- 
tion should be taken out of the hands of the Public School So- 
ciety, and be "placed in the hands' of Commissioners elected by 
the People, who will be accountable to the People for their acts, 
and who will be sworn not to allow sectarianism to influence 
the appropriation or distribution of these funds, the selection 
of books for the use of schools under their control, or of teachers 
in those schools."--'' It was held that the Society was "a monop- 
oly of an odious character, wholly irresponsible to the people 
whose agent it professes to be."*° Finally, Governor Seward, 
in his message of January, 1842, advocated the establishment 
of a common school system in the city of New York. He esti- 
mated that 20,000 children in that city were not attending 
school." As a result, the legislature, in 1842. enacted a law 
providing for a public school system in that city."*- The Nnv 



=' Curry, Daniel, Metropolitan City of America, 2G6. 

■■*» Letter signed by A. M. Printed in The Man, .January 16, 1835. 

'•" Letter signed "Catholics." A'. Y. Trihnne. November 24. 1841. 

«' Resolutions adopted at a mass meeting of "Catholics and others favorable to 
an alteration in the present Public School System." A'. V. Tribune, N3rea')3r' 
10. 1841. 

•" A. Y. TriJiiiiif. .launai-y .">. 1S4'J. Also II. .T. Desmond. The Knoir-XotUint/ 
Parti/. 28-33. 

42 The vote was. in the Senate. 13 for and 12 against: in House, SO to 20 re- 
spectively. 

[100] 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 101 

York Tribune called this bill an act "to extend the blessings of 
Sectarian and Political strife into the management of our city 
Common Schools." The editor declared that Tammany was 
forced to support this bill because of fear of a defection of two 
thousand Catholic voters."*^ 

After the enactment of this law the schools under the control 
of the Public School Society steadily declined. In 1852, the 
Society terminated its existence, and turned over the schools in 
its charge to the board of education. The Public School Society 
had, in 1842. undoubtedly passed its period of greatest useful- 
ness; its methods and numagement did not harmonize with ideals 
of the time. The results of this sectarian contl.ct were produc- 
tive of good. "The importance of the controversy that sprang 
up around this corporation in the city of New York can hardly 
be overrated. . . . Indeed, the reorganization of the New 
York City schools assured the great popular majority of votes 
in that city in favor of an absolute free school system for the 
State, which carried the point."** 

Passing from the city to the state, we need only call attention 
to the law of 18-19 which did away with the odious rate-bill 
throughout the entire state. It reads; "Common schools in the 
several school districts in this State shall be free to all persons 
residing in the district over live and under twenty-one years of 
age,"*^ The schools were to be supported by the distribution of 
state funds and by local taxation. The fight of 1849 and 1850 
was merely one to prevent the lopping off of the rate-bill. Since 
1812, local taxation had been utilized for the public schools; 
but it was the increase in this tax which stirred up such bitter 
opposition. 

iMassachusetts and Connecticut, with a comparatively homo- 
geneous population, and still nursing a fear of any sort of cen- 
tralized administration, delayed the adoption of any systematic 
plan of school supervision until the latter part of the decade of 
the thirties. Rapidly increasing heterogeneity of population 
made possible and desirable, the work of Horace i\Iaun and 



".V. y. Trihuiie. April 11, 1S42. 

"Mayo, Rep't of Commissioner of Education, 1897-98, 1: 452, 454. 
*^ Act to rstahlish free nchooi^ tliroin/lioHt the state in Slatutcs of Xcw York, 
18^9, sec. 1. 

noil 



102 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

Henry Barnard. In Xe,v York, on the contrary, the first act 
looking- toward state supervision was enacted as early as 1812, 
with apparently little opposition ; and today the school adminis- 
tration of the state of New York is perhaps centralized to a 
greater extent than in any other .state in the Union. New York 
has "had supervision by State officers since 1812, by county or 
district officers from 1811 to 1817 and from 1856 to the present 
time, and by town officers from 1795 to 1856. "^« This is one 
of the significant and interesting features of the educational 
development of the state of New York. 

Pennsylvania * 

In the educational development of Pennsylvania, three points 
are especially worthy of notice; the prominence given to sec- 
tarian schools, the unusual odium which attached to the "pau- 
per" children attending the public schools, and the evident 
influence of the New England man in the establishment of the 
free school system. The acts of 1802 and 1809 carried out the 
provisions of the state constitution, and provided for the free 
instruction for the children of the poor. These acts with some 
modifications remained in force until the passage of the free 
school act of 1834. The law of 1809 "compelled parents to 
make public records of their poverty — to pauperize themselves, 
so to speak, by sending their children to school with this in- 
vidious mark upon them. Another disagreeable feature of the 
law was. that it re([uired teachers to make oath or affidavit of all 
such children too poor to pay for their own schooling, where- 
upon the County Commissioners were required to compensate 
the schoolmaster in charge. Under this pauper act, so much 
odium was attached to those who attended the schools, that 
many people preferred to keep their children at home in ignor- 
ance rather than suffer the humiliation to which they were 
subjected by those whose parents could afford the expense of 
educatjing them privately."*" Thus this pauper clause, in- 
serted probably' because of the general prevalence of sectarian 



<" nraper. The N. Y. Common School Sufifcni, (1890). .^>9. 
" Uiddle, Wm., School History of LancfhttPr. Pcnn.. -1. 

[102] 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 103 

schools, tended to discredit the public school system, to accent- 
uate class distinctions, and to increase the intluence and num- 
bers of the sectarian and private schools. Those who could 
afford to pay rate bills sent their children elsewhere and many 
who could not kept their children out of school entirely. 
Even a decade after the passage of the free school act, the pri- 
vate schools "were still all-powerful, and those attending them 
only too frequently looked with disdain upon those compelled 
.through necessity in many instances tu attend the 'state 
schools.' '-^^ Pennsjdvania became unhappily distinguished for 
the large number of her children who were not attending school. 
"By a recent estimate made by competent persons, it appears 
that there are one million children in the United States, grow- 
ing up in ignorance, without the means of education; of these 
250,000 are said to be in Pennsylvania."^^ Another account 
states that in 1837. more than 250,000, out of 400,000 children 
in the state were destitute of school instruction;^"' a third es- 
timate places the number at 200.000 in 1835.^^^ 

As has already been noticed in the fight of 1834r-1835 for the 
free school law, the influence of the New England men was in 
favor of the law. "In a group of ten counties found on the 
northern border of the state, settled largely from New England 
and New York, there was not found a single hostile district. 
It was in this region that the first settlement in the beautiful 
Wyoming- valley by a Connecticut colony had established the 
New England system of common schools before the Revolution- 
ary war. These counties' were not only intensely patriotic, but 
they also forced the brief acknowledgement of universal educa- 
tion into the constitutions of 1779 and 1790. And here had 
been found the solid column of support for the gallant leader- 
ship of Thaddeus Stevens, which had upheld the new school law 
during the a.ssault that followed its enactment."^- The follow- 
ing testimony from a county having a mixed population is also 



*^ Ibid., 2\. 

*»:S€wark ScnPincl. Quoted in Philndclpltia Liherator, June 29. 1883. 

'^Portland Transcript. Quoted in Farmers' and Mechanics' Journal. September 
8, IS.'^S. 

^^ Pittshurgh Visitnr. Quoted in Phila. American Dailii Advertiser. January 
21, 18.35. 

=2 Mayo, Rcp't of the Com. of Education. 1807-98. 474. 

[103] 



10-1 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

pertinent. "As has been said, there was from the time of the 
first settlement of this old town the nucleus of an English pop- 
ulation. It was small in number at first, but all-powerful in 
scholastic training and religious' conviction, elements that have 
ever dominated the social, political and intellectual life of this 
city from then to the present day, (1905). This, however, is in 
no way intended to convey the impression that the Lutheran, 
the Moravian and German Reformed Congregations, the oldest 
with the possible exception of the Friends, were any less intelli- 
gent or aggressive. But they differ from the English settlers 
in adhering more strictly to their own denominational schools 
and places of worship ; and they manifested little interest, at 
least for many years in the political and secular affairs of the 
community. "^^ Every county in the northern tier of counties 
was overwhelmingly in favor of living up to the conditions im- 
posed bj' the free school law ; and five out of seven on the west- 
ern row were favorable to it. Among the counties most strongly 
against it and in 'which nearly all districts rejected the pro- 
visions of the law, were Berks, Dauplin, Lebanon, Lehigh, and 
Union. '^^ As late as 1866, twenty-three districts in eleven dif- 
ferent counties, having at least six thousand children of school 
age, still refused to put the public schools in operation, and re- 
jected the grant of state aid.^^ Governor Wolf in his message 
of December, 1835, said: "The state exclusive of the city and 
county of Philadelphia, which are not embraced within the pro- 
visions of the law [1834 and the supplemental act of 1835], 
and the counties of Greene, Columbia, Montgomery and Clear- 
field, from which no reports have been received has been di\nded 
into 907 school districts, of this number 536 have accepted 
and 371 rejected the provisions of the law. "^^ When we re- 
member that, if a district rejected the provisions of the law, it 
lost all claim to state aid in educating its children , we are able 
to picture the bitterness of the opposition to the free schools. 

Like New York City, Philadelphia, the largest city of the 
state was favored by a special school law. In 1818, a special 



"Riddle, School History of Lancaster, (100.")). 7-8. 

•'* WicUersham, (1886), 322. 

■■5 Ihkl., 562. 

=" Quoted in Hazard's Rcqlsicr of P( nnsi/lrania, (1830). IG: 372. 

[101] 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 105 

law was passed to establish a better aiid less expensive system 
of schools in the city, than those in operation under the general 
state law of 1809. However, these schools were in principle 
"pauper schools" exactly as w^ere those organized under the 
state law; ''and they are more to be commended only because 
they were organized into a system under the management of 
responsible officers, and provision was made for the building of 
schoolhouses. the preparation of teachers and the furnishing of 
text-books."^" However, these schools gradually became "so 
much like free schools that the transition of 1836 was scarcely 
felt except in the multitudes of new pupils who applied for ad- 
mission."^^ As' stated above, the law of 1834 did not apply to Phil- 
adelphia. The special law of 1836, amended the act of 1818 so as 
to admit all children. The power of conservative and sectarian 
interests is particularly noticeable in this city. "The city of 
Philadelphia and the four adjacent counties were largely, in 
their influential classes, still dominated by the religious sect of 
the Friends' or Quakers. This body, from the first, had been 
strongly attached to a special parochial system of education, 
and had built up. not only for the higher, but largely for the 
poorer classes, including the neglected colored people, an edu- 
cational system satisfactory to itself. In this, still the most in- 
fluential, wealthy, and cultivated section of the state, after a 
three-years experiment, little more than one-half of the districts 
in these counties had accepted the common schools. To meet 
this condition the law had been modified in the interest of the 
prevailing system to subsidize all schools willing to come under 
a merely nominal control of the state, retaining the power of 
appointing their own teachers. "^^ 

In both cities, New York and Philadelphia, where the pecu- 
liar evils of modern urban life were early apparent, the need 
of education for the children of the working classes was felt, 
before it was discerned elsewhere in the two states. To meet 
this demand sectarian and private schools became numerous'; 
and althoush these cities contained a large wage-earning and 



" Wickersham, (1886), 286-87. 

58 7biV7., 287. 

f^fMayo. Rep't of Com. of Education, ( 1807-98) , 474. 

[105] 



106 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

non- or small tax-paying population, such was the influence of 
the private and sectarian schools that the development of the 
public school system in these two cities actually lagged behind, 
in certain respects, that of the general system in their respec- 
tive states. While at the time of their inception these non-pub- 
lic schools represented progress' ; in, the course of events, they 
became conservative and blocked the way leading toward a pub- 
lie school system, uniform with the remainder of the state. 
They were animated by a conception of educational methods 
and duties which was incompatible with modern industrial and 
urban conditions; their ideals were chiefly traditional and un- 
democratic. 

Contrasting the educational development in these two import- 
ant states, it seems that the earlier enactment of a free school 
law in Pennsylvania was due in no small measure, to the pecu- 
liar odium which attached itself to the "pauper clause" in the 
e«rly school law of that state. This in turn was due to the 
strength of the German and sectarian influence. The milder 
form of the early school law in New York actually delayed the 
final enactment of a free school law, devoid of the pauper stigma. 
The Pennsylvania struggle was one in which nationalities 
and religious sects played a considerable role. The New York 
climax came a decade and one-half later, when the contrast be- 
tween urban and raral, and between wage-earners and large 
tax-payers was much more definitely marked. In New York 
and Rhode Island the student may see most clearly the forces 
which have hastened the evolution of the tax-supported public 
school system. 

Before passing on. attention should Ije called to a notable re- 
port on education prepared by a committee appointed, in Sep- 
tember, 1829, by the workingmen of Philadelphia."" The com- 
mittee, which reported about five months later, painted a very 
dismal picture of educational conditions in Pennsylvania. 
With the exception of Philadelphia. Lancaster and Pittsburg, 
which were favored by special school laws, it was found that the 
schools of the state were in a deplorable condition. The pro- 



<• Report printed in full. Dehnrarr Free Press. March l."^. 20 and 27. 1830. 
Free Enquirer. March C and i::. 1S::(). irorA/»f/ Mun-» Adrucatc. March 0. 1830. 

[106] 



CARLTON — ECONOillC IXFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 107 

visions of the act of 1809 were frequently inoperative. "The 
funds appropriated by the act have, in some instances, been 
enibezzk'd l)y frauduk'nt agents; and in others, partial returns 
of the children have been made, and some have been illegally 
and intentionally excluded from participating in the provisions 
of the law." 

This connnittee then presented its proposals for remedying 
the deficiencies in the then-existing public school system. Re- 
membering that this report was Avritten three-quarters of a cen- 
tury ago, it is certainly not an exaggeration to designate it a.s 
a remarkable document. First and foremost is the demand that 
the "pauper clause" in the school law be removed, and the 
schools opened free to all. Then four important proposals were 
made which are worthy of particular notice. (1) Schools for 
the care and instruction of infants were favored. It was as- 
serted that the young children of the poor could not be properly 
taken care of at home. (2) It was recommended that at least 
one manual labor school be established in each county. These 
schools, it was urged, would reduce the expense to the connnun- 
ity by enabling the children to maintain themselves; and would 
make it possible for the poor to send their older children to 
school. It was pointed out that "the practice, formerly univer- 
sal, of schooling apprentices, has, of late years, greatly dimin- 
ished, and is still diminishing;" manual labor schools would 
tend to remedy thig evil. (3.) The committee favored a sys- 
tem of school management similar to that now' employed in 
"school cities" or in the George Junior Republic. (4) It be- 
wailed the prevalence of the vice of intemperance among the 
city youth; and emphasized the importance of. and necessity for 
a plan of education which would combine study, play and man- 
ual labor. Such a plan "by its almost entire occupation of the 
time of the pupils either in labor, study or recreation, by the 
superior facilities it affords for engrossing their whole attention 
and by its capability of embracing the whole juvenile ])opula- 
tion furnishes, we believe, the only rational hope of ultimately 
averting the ruin which is threatened by this extensive vice." 
This sentiment clearly anticipates many of the most modern 
ideas as to the treatment of juvenile delinquents. The parental 

noTi 



108 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

school is now doing- the kind of work this committee recom- 
mended. The men who framed this report evidently did not, 
however, anticipate immediate important, practical results. "It 
is to be expected," reads the report, "that political demagog- 
ism, professional monopoly and monied influence, will conspire 
as hitherto (with solitary exceptions more or less numerous) 
they ever have conspired against everything that has promised 
to be an equal benefit to the whole population." 



Vermont 

The progreas of educational evolution in this New England 
state is instructive because Vermont is a typical New England 
commonwealth. Her people possessed all the traditions', cus- 
toms and habits of the early New Englanders. But Vermont, 
unlike ]\Iassachussetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island, has re- 
mained, down to the present era, a preponderantly rural state. 
No large cities are found in the state. The direct influence of 
the growth of an industrial population and of cities is very 
small ; indirectly, of course, the influence of educational ad- 
vance in other states has lieeii felt. The first settlers of Vei-mont 
came chiefly from the colonies of iMassiachusetts and Connecti- 
cut,"^ and were animated by the same religious spirit. That the 
people of Vermont possessed all the peculiar equalities of the typ- 
ical New England Yankee as to personal independence, is clearly 
shown by the first report of the board of school commission- 
ers in 1828. "No system of common school education can be 
of lasting or essential benefit to the state unless it receives the 
cordial cooperation and support of parents and instructors. 
But so generally diffused through the great mass of the com- 
munity is the sense of personal as well as political independence, 
and so sleeplesis' is the jealousy of arbitary power, which is al- 
most instinctive in the popular mind, that the attempt, however 
well-intentioned, to dictate the books to be used in our common 
schools is regarded by many as invasion of the right of private 



Smith and Rami. Jlintorij af IiKtliind Vountii. lidl. 

[108] 



C.VBLTOK — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 109 

jiulginent. and ('un.se(iuently as incoinpatiblc with the genius 
of our free institutions. ""- 

In 1856, nearly twenty years later than in ^Massachusetts, "a 
rising wave of a popular educational revival lifted the fathers 
of the State to the establishment of a board of education, ' ' siin- 
ilar to that of Massachusetts.*^^ The educational uplift which 
]\Iassachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island experienced in 
the thirties and forties seems to have reached Vermont ten to 
twenty years later. For example one of Vermont's histori- 
ans writing in 1853, declared: "But while Vermont is not 
perhaps behind any of her sister states in the general intelli- 
gence of the people, we cannot help thinking that the general in- 
terests of education have, for several years past, been culpably 
neglected. While other states have been rapidly improving 
their schools und school systems, Vermont has remained nearly 
stationary.""* Even in 1867. the state superintendent of educa- 
tion declared that the condition of the schools for a score of 
years was a "source of grief and mortification to a large ma- 
jority of our citizens."'*^ In 1856, the then superintendent as- 
serted that "the public mind seemed to have sunk into a state 
of torpor and indifference, the legitimate and usual consequences 
of State inaction."*"^ 

The inherited New England belief in the value of universal 
education, and the reflected influence of progress in neighl)or- 
ing states, kept alive the educational spark in Vermont. The 
lesson is that homogeneity of population, absence of wide dif- 
ferences of interests among the inhabitants, and the predomi- 
nance of the middle classes did not give birth to the modern tax- 
supported public school system : if these were the potent influ- 
ences, Vermont should have stood in the forefront of educational 
development during our period. The story of Vermont points 
toward the conclusion, certainly, that the tax-supported school 
system evolved out of heterogeneity of population, improvement 
in methods of production, the specialization of industry, the 



"-Quoted in Rcp't of Com- of Education, (1S97-9S), 1: 408. 

<» Ibid. 413. 

« Thompson, Zadock, History of reniwnt, (1853), pt. 2, 142. 

«' Rann, W. S., History of Chittenden County, 211. 

<^ Kep-t Com. of Education. (1897-98). 1: 414. 

[109] 



110 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

division of labor, the growth of factories and the separation of 
home life from industrial occupations. 

Ohio 

Turning to the AYest, where frontier influences were still pre- 
dominant, let us examine into the causes of the trend of educa- 
tional development in this section. The first act which made 
any attemjot to carry out the constitutional requirements as to 
education in the state of Ohio, was passed in January. 1821. 
This act permitted the funds derived from the sale of the school 
lands to be applied to the erection of schoolhouses. Each dis- 
trict might determine for itself the amount of taxation to be ap- 
plied to school purposes. Eate bills twere to be levied.^" The next 
step in educational development in Ohio was taken one year later 
by the appointment of a commission to report on a common-school 
system. This measure was passed after resort to "log-rolling;" 
a combination was formed between the friends of education and 
of canals.*'^ The law of 1825 was the result of the labors of this 
coimnittee. This law furnivshed the real foundation of the 
school system of the state. It Avas made the duty of the town- 
ship trustees to organize school-districts. A county school tax 
of one-half mill was ordered and provisions were made for dis- 
tributing the funds derived from the school lands among the 
school districts. Examination of teachers was mandatory, and 
the required branches to be taught were prescribed to be the 
famous three R's.''^ "The school law of 1825 wa.s not well re- 
ceived in even a majority of the principal toA^ais of the state, 
and eleven years elapsed before adequate steps were taken to 
render the system it provided for efficient. "^° 

"Almost coincident with the eastern educational revival un- 
der Horace Mann in 1837, a popular wave of public school en- 
thusiasm struck Ohio."'^ The keynote of the act of 1837 which 



«' King. Rufus. Ohio, 348; Barunid'n Jotiniul of Eihicutinn, (18.50). O: 82 et scq. 
Dexter. Hlstoiu of Education in tin- V. S., Ki.j. 
>^s Kins, Kufus, Ohio, 348. 

•ss Hinsdale, Rep't of Com. of Education, (1901), 1: 134. 
~o Bnrnard's Journnl o' Edurntion. (1859), O: 85. 
■1 Dexter, 105. 

[110] 



C-VBLTOX — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 111 

resulted from this "poinilar wave" was supervision, as was true 
of the act passed in ^lassachusetts. Samuel Lewis Avas appointed 
state superintendent of schools soon after the passage of this 
act.'- Many acts were passed between 1825 and 1850 changing 
the rate of taxation for school purposes.'^ In 1853. the rate- 
bill was finally relegated to the past. The curriculum of the 
common schools of Ohio.Avas extremely narrow during the period 
under discussion. Grannnar and geography were first ordered 
to be placed in the curriculum in 1848."^ As late as 1845, many 
school directors of the districts, "forbade the teaching of any 
branches except reading, writing and arithmetic. "^^ 

The course of educational advance in Ohio during this period 
was unmarked by spectacular episodes. Two points, however, must 
not be overlooked in the consideration of the educational history 
of Ohio. (1) Broad suffrage provisions are found in the first 
constitution of the state. (2) Agricultural interests were per- 
dominate in the state; there was no marked opposition between 
rural and urban populations previous to 1850. The constitu- 
tional provisions and the early laws as to education seem to have 
been attained through the efforts of men imbued with New 
England ideals. One reason for this opinion rests on the preva- 
lence of the New England district system, and the extreme decen- 
tralization of the school administration. Until very recently the 
school districts were practically free from all effective supervision. 
Another support for this opinion is found in the refu&'al on the 
part of many towns to accept the provisions of the act of 1825.'*' 

The New England man seems to have been an important factor 
in the political history of Ohio. "A majority of the legislators 
of our State were, a few years before the establishment of our 
school sj'&tem, natives, or descendants from natives, of New 
England, and, in due time, they gave efficient aid to the enact- 
ment of the school law. In the middle and southern portions 



"TTiis office was abolished in 1840. From 1840 to IS.-}.*? the secretary of state 
acted as superintendent of schools. For analysis of the school history of Ohio, 
see Orth. S. P., Tlic centraUsatlon of administration in Ohio in Columbia Studies,- 
1«: No. 3, 73. 

" Barnard's Jounial, (1859), 6:545-46. 

" Ibid., 95. 

" Ibid., 90. 

'° See previous citation li((rnard\s Jnunuil, O; 85. 

[Ill] 



112 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

■of our State, most of the first settlers were from Pennsylvania, 
and from states further south."'' "In the Ohio legislature in 
1822 there were thirty-eight of middle state birth, thirty-three 
of southern (including Kentucky), and twenty-tive of New 
England."'* The Western Reserve, consisting of a block of 
twelve counties in the northeastern portion of the state, and 
peopled largely from Connecticut, fostered education from the 
outset, and was no small factor in determining the course of 
educa t: on al develop m ent . ' ^ 

' ' The early immigrants to Ohio from New England considered 
schools and churches as among their first wants . . . those 
from Pennsylvania considered them the last . . . while 
those from New Jersey, and the few from IMaryland, Virginia, 
the other Southern states, had their views of education fixed 
upon so high a scale that nothing less than colleges, or semi- 
naries of the highest class could claim much of their attention, 
or seem to require any extraordinary efforts for their establish- 
ment. "-- Professor Turner speaking of certain conditions in 
the decade, 1820-1830, writes: "The West was too new a sec- 
tion to have developed educational facilities to any large ex- 
tent. The pioneei-s' poverty, as well as the traditions of the 
southern interior from which they so largely came discouraged 
extensive expenditures for public schools."*^ 

The principle of public support of common schools' seems to 
have been accepted in theory at least by an influential fraction 
of the population of the commonwealth at the time of the adop- 
tion of the fir-st state constitution. In Massachusetts, as has 
been stated, the educational advance during the period was to- 
ward better supei'insion of the schools. This movement was 
more successful in that state than in her sister state, Connecti- 
cut, where industry was not so important a factor in the state's 
economic life as in ^Massachusetts. In Ohio, a state which in- 
herited, in no small degree, the New England traditions and 



'' Footo. .T. 1'., The firlinols of Cincinnaii. (1855), ."■">. 

's Turner, F. J., Colonisation of the IVest in Amer. Hist. Rev., 2: 308. Also 
KilCft' Rcfjistrr. 31: 368. 

"Mathews, A.. Ohio arid her Wr.strni Re.trrvr, IOC. 

™ Foote. School'^ of Cinciiiiidti. (1855K 35. 

s' Turner. Colotiixation of the West in Amer. Hi^t. Rev., 2: 326. 

[112] 



aVRLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 113 

ideals, but lagged behind both ^lassachusetts and Connecticut 
in industrial and urban development, supervision failed of 
practical results comparable with those of Mas»sachusetts. De- 
mand for the centralization of educational authority, in the 
United States, tends to become strong where the population 
-consists of widely divergent social and industrial factors; and 
when industrial and urban population are important factors 
in the community. 

The South 

The failure of the common school .system in the South pre- 
vious to the Civil war is important, in view of the fact that our 
study of the North has forced upon us the conclusion that the 
cities and the working classes were chiefly instrumental in plac- 
ing our schools upon a tax-supported basis. A contemporary 
writer has so well summarized the forces which operated in the 
South during our period that it is advisable to quote a para- 
graph^ Before the Civil war. "the towns and cities assumed 
•comparatively slight dmportance. The South had little export 
trade of manufactured articles. Its' cotton went to England 
and New England cotton mills. It had not reached the point 
of working up its raw products for commercial purposes. Hence, 
as a distinctly manufacturing center, the city was quite un- 
known, and with the majority of the population engaged in 
agriculture the town exerted no dominant influence. The senti- 
ments that characterized the rural population permeated the 
towns and formed public opinion in the South. "^^- To this 
must be added the entire lack of New England traditions, the 
presence of a slave population, and the prevalence of the plan- 
tation system. These influences seem sufficient to account for 
the trend of educational development in this section. 

In recent years industries are springing up in many of the 
southern states; and the prol)lems relating to education and -to 
child labor are becoming acute. This section of the nation is 
passing through a period of development similar to that through 



«= Simons. May W.. A)nirican Jouninl of Roeiolomi, lO : 383. 

S [113] 



114 BULLETIN OP THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

which New England and New York passed nearly three-fourths 
of a century earlier.^=^ The following poster was used in a 
campaign of educat&on in Georgia in 1905.^* ''Vote for j^our 
children. Local taxation for education is the cheapest insur- 
ance for the coming generation. It's right! It pays! Vote out 
Ignorance. Vote in the only Basis of Economic Progress.'^ 
Here is a recrudescence of the economic argument in the form 
in which it was used in the North more than half a century ago. 
The educational phenomena of the South strikingly strengthen 
the opinion that modern educational progress and industrial 
evolution proceed hand in hand.-^ 

The experience of the Carolinas throws some light upon the 
problem before us. In 1811, South Carolina passed a free 
school law. This law did not provide for local taxation, but 
authorized a state appropriaition of three hundred dollars each 
to as many schools as there were representatives in the lower 
house of the state legislature. Every citizen was entitled, ac- 
cording to the law, to send his children to the free schools ; but 
in case more children applied than could be conveniently ac- 
conunodated, the children of the poor 'were to be given the pref- 
erence.**** In December, 1814, an attempt was made to repeal 
this law. "The act which established a fund for the support 
of Free Schools through the state of South Carolina has been 
repealed! And this too. notwithstanding a committee of the 
Legislature unanimously reported that they had examined the 
reports of the Commissioners of 23 school districts and found 
that no less than 4,651 children had been educated the last year 
from the fund; and that the act had been productive of un- 
bounded good and no evil. To the honor of the Charleston rep- 
resentation it ought to be stated that they all voted against the 



"The writer, The South during the Last Decade in Seivanee Revieio, April, 
1904. 

" Now in tho hands of Trof. R. T. Ely. 
, "A southern commercial convention, helrt in Memphis in 18.'i3, recommended to 
the people of the South, "the education of their youth at home, as far as prac- 
ticable." UcJioti's h'eiit'ir. 15: i!(58. 

8« Cooper, Thomas, Statutes at large of South Carolina, (1SS9), 5: 639-41.. 
Also Courtenay, Mayor William A., Education' in South Carolina, (188G) ; a pam- 
phlet issued by the city council of Charleston. 

[114] 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INTFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 115 

repeal."^' The Senate refused to concur with the' House ;^* 
and the law remained upon the statute books during the entire 
period, 1820 to 1850.-'^ Its provisions were not well carried 
out;'-*^ as its execution was left to districts and was without 
centralized control. In 1853, it was written: "We have the 
M-hole work to begin anew."®^ 

A public school system was inaugurated in North Carolina 
in 1810. In 1858, it was stated that "upon a calm review of 
the entire facts', it is neither immodest nor unjust to assert that 
North Carolina is clearly ahead of all the slave-holding states 
with her system of public instruction, while she compares favor- 
ably in several respects with siome of the New England and 
Northwestern States."''- Economic and social conditions in 
North Carolina approximated those of Vermont or Ohio much 
more closely than di'd the conditions existing in the other states 
of the slave-owning South;''" and here is found the closest ap- 
proach to the rural school system of the North. In South Caro- 
lina, the sigTiifieant feature is the influence exerted hy the city 
of Charleston in favor of free public schools. 

Delaware 

The state of Delaware furnishes some very interesting and 
instructive material. This state is quite narrow in comparison 
with its length; and is composed of three counties only, — ^New 
Castle on the north, Kent in' the middle, and Sussex on the 
south. The only important city is "Wilmington, situated in New 
Castle county. In 1850, one-third of the population of this 
county were included within the corporate limits of Wilming- 



^' Coluinhia Ccniinc! (Boston), .Tamiary -1, 181."). 2. 

^^Tioston Ga::ettc, .Taniiary 12. ISl."), 2. 

*' In 18i:6, there were four fri^e schools established in Cliarleslon. Mills. Roltert, 
Staii sties of Charleston, (1820), 438. The total population of the city in 1820, in- 
cluding slaves, was 24,870. 

"^ Message of Gov. Andrew Pickens, Xational Intelligencer, December 9, 1817. 

'" Thornwell, .1. II., Letter to //iJ*r Exeellencn Oor. Manniny on Piihlic Instruc- 
tion in South Ciirolina. (IS.j.'i), 28. 

92 Rev. C, II. Wiley, Sup't of Common Schools of X. C, A\ C. Journal of Educa- 
tion, February, 1858. Quoted by Smith, Chas. I^.. History of Eiliication in North 
Carolina. Issued by Com. of Kducation. (ISSSt, 100. 
■ »2 Bruce. P. A., The Rise of the Seir South in History of yortli America, 17. 

[115] 



116 



BULLETIX OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 



ton. Sussex county was a purely agricultural county; in 1850 
nearly seven per cent, of its population were slaves. Kent 
•county, containing the village of Dover, was of a distinctly rural 
character, but only about one and one-half per cent, of its popu- 
lation were slaves. 



1840. «■• 



New Castle Co, 

Kent Co 

Sussex Co 



Population. 



33,120 
19,872 
25,093 



Number of 

persons 
employed in 
agriculture. 



Number of 

persons 
employed in 
manufac- 
ture. 



5,119 
4,604 
6,292 



2,805 
659 
596 



Number of 
primary 

and 
common 
schools. 





Population. 


Slave 
population. 


Pdblic Schools. 


1850. ^'i 


Taxation 
for. 


Pupils. 


Tax per 
pupil. 


Newcastle Co 

Kent Co 

Sussex Co 


42,780 
22,816 
25.936 


394 

347 

1,.549 


$8,975 
4,161 
1,286 


3,227 
2,403 
3,340 


$2.78 
1.77 
0.38 



In 1829, a local option school law, fathered by a New Eng- 
land man, Willard Hall,'"' was passed by the state legislature. 
The principles underlying this law, as afterwards stated by I\Ir. 
Hall, represented a cross between the southern and the New 
England idea as to the educational functions of the state. ' ' The 
Report of the Massachusetts Board of Education declares that 
the cardinal principle which lies at the foundation of their 
educational system is, that all the children of the State, shall 
be educated by the State. Let it be distinctly remarked that 
this is not the principle of our school system; but that our 



8* CoiHiifi RriHiits: (1S40». 

Population. 

Dover (villaao). Kent Co 3.790 

New Castle (village). New Castle Co 2,737 

Wilmington (village). New Ca.stle Co 8,367 

^-'Ibid. (]S.50(. 

""Willard Ilaii (1780-1875), was born in Massaohusetts. and graduated from 
Harvard iu 1799. He was a lawyer and a politician, and became the first superin- 
tendent of public scliools of Delaware. 

[116] 



CARLTOX — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 117 

school system is founded upon the position that the people must 
educate their own children and that all the State should do, or 
can do for any useful effect, is to organize them into commun- 
ities so as to act together for that purpose and help and en- 
courage them to act efficiently."" This is the voice of the lib- 
eral, not of the democrat. 

This school law operated fairly well in New Castle county: 
but not so Avell in Kent and Sussex.^^ In New Castle county, 
in 1852, the amount raised by tax was double that of 1832. 
In Kent and Sussex counties, it had only increased about one- 
fifth, and was actually less than in 1841.^^ In 1850, one-third 
of the total population of New Castle county lived in Wilming- 
ton ; and the amount of money per pupil, raised by taxation 
'was $2.78. But the strictly rural coimty of Sussex, with a com- 
paratively large slave population, raised only thirty-eight and 
a fraction cents per pupil. This striking contrast cannot be 
adequately explained, as has been argued,^°° by the influence of 
annual school conventions in New Castle county and the ab- 
sence of their influence in Sussex county. The dissimilarity be- 
tween the economic and social conditions was, as the preceding 
tables have shown, very great; and it is in this circumstance 
that we must look for a more adequate explanation of the edu- 
cational phenomena exhibited by these two counties. 

In the history of the development of the school system of 
Delaware from 1820 to 1850, therefore, three points stand out 
prominently. First, the initiative of the educated leader im- 
pelled by humanitarian impulses. Second, the favorable in- 
fluence of the urban population and of the workingmen. The 
workingmen of AVilmington and New Castle county, like those 
of NcAv York and Philadelphia, were insistent, at the opening 
of the decade of the thirties, in their demands for better edu- 



"" Speech before a state school convention, at Dover, in 1S4.S. Quoted Barnard's 
Journal of Education, IG: 370. 

"« Willard Ilall in a letter to Dr. Barnard. Jiarnard's Journal of Education, 16: 
129. 

"» Powell, Ilistonj of Education in Delaware, (1893), 144. Issued My Com. of 
Education. 

'""Powell. 14 (. Also Barnard's Journal of Education, 16: 129. 

[117] 



118 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

cational facilities.^"^ Third, the retarding influence of the rural 
population, particularly where slaves were owned. About 1850, 
democratic tendencies were beginning to overwhelm the liberal 
sentiment. "Public sentiment throughout the State was rapidly 
increasing in favor of removing taxation for the maintenance 
of schools beyond the caprices. narro^A^less, and prejudices of 
the voter.^*^^ In this movement New Castle county naturally 
assumed the leadership. 



^^'- Delaware Free Press, January 9, July 31. August 2s. Septemlier IS and 25 
and October 9, 1S30. 
1"= Powell, 147. 



[118] 



CARLTOX — ECONOMIC IXFLUEXCES UPON EDUCATION 119 



CHAPTER VII 

CONCLUDING REMARKS 

What were the immediate influences' which produced the edu- 
cational advance of the period 1820-1850? Which is funda- 
mental, educational progress or industrial and social changes? 
What answer does our investigation offer? The facts presented 
in the preceding chapters seem to warrant the conclusion that 
economic and social conditions are the sources from which spring 
educational methods and ideals rather than the reverse. It is 
an old fallacy that institutions and forms of governments 
mold a people; on the contrary it is much nearer the truth 
to maintain that political institutions and laws are outward and 
visible manifestations of the spirit and ideals of a people. 
Similarly, educational systems while introducing important 
modifying factors are true products of the industrial and social 
life of a people. The New England school system did not arise 
in' the South or in Rhode Island during the colonial period, be- 
cause of different economic and social conditions'. Rhode Island, 
becoming predominately an industrial state, adopted the tax- 
supported sr^'stem before 1850 ; but the South, committed to the 
plantation system and to the institution of slavery, adhered to 
the old policy of private schools. Today when indiLstry is quick- 
ening her pulses', the demand for efficient tax-supported schools 
is growing insistent. ^Manual training and laboratory'- work 
were not placed in the curriculum until sub-division of labor 
and the factory system made such additions imperative. The 
demand for tax-supported schools became strong and vigorous 
after the growth of the industrial clasis and the development of 
the modern city with its heterogeneous population. The evi- 
dence adduced in the preceding chapters shows that the tax-sup- 
ported, state-maintained public school is essentially an out- 
growth of industrial evolution. 

[119] 



120 BULLETIN OF THE TNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

Universal education is a modern doctrine; it is borne along- 
on the rising tide of modern democracy. It springs from the 
same sources as does democracy. Universal education did not 
fit into the program of the feudal or the militaiy state. The 
idea of taxation for the support of the common schools and of 
compulsory attendance upon the same is midoubtedly foreign 
to the spirit of the eighteenth century as expressed by the Eng- 
lish people. The doctrine of natural rights does not harmonize 
with the demand for free tax-supported schools. The modern 
system of education is a product of democracy, not of liberalism. 
The old theocratic idea of the religious necessity of education; 
transmitted through generations of New England men is an 
important element of strength which the past bequeathed to the 
modern movement ; but the present can never be explained with- 
out a consideration of the past. 

Educational aims, methods and ideals are modified as in- 
dustrial and social conditions change. There are no hard and 
fast standards of educational values. Wliile no one of the states 
presents the different forces isolated, as one would desire for a 
laboratory experiment ; such an examination as has been made in 
the preceding chapters does disclose <many important tendencies. 
A rural community has one standard of education and a city 
.people another; this is exemplified in New York, Pennsylvania^ 
and Rhode Island. The prevalence of domestic industry pro- 
duces one attitude, and the general adoption of the factory 
system another attitude upon the subject of education, and the 
relation of the state to the school system; this is evident if a 
comparison is made between New England before the War of 
1812 and after 1820. In a district where a dominant religious 
belief is found, a different standard of educational values will 
probably obtain than where many sects are present. It was 
the animosity between the religious factions which hastened the 
adoption of the public school system in New York City. In 
Pennsylvania the attitude of certain religious sects was quite 
different, in counties where several sects were mingled, from 
that which obtained in counties where one of these beliefs was 
predominant. Colonial New England viewed the educational 
problem differently before and after the passage of the acts of 

[120] 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 121 

reliyioii.s toleration. Aiiain, the questiou is decided differently 
in a state possessing a comparativel}'- homogeneous population 
than in a state where the population is very heterogeneous. In 
the state of New York is found an extreme differentiation of 
urban ■ from rural types, and between rich and poor. In this 
state are found large numbers of raw immigrants of many na- 
tionalities. It is peopled by an extremely heterogeneous mass 
of human beings. And in New York state supervision of the 
public school system early obtained a foot-hold. Toda}^ she is 
the leader in the work of f^tate supervision of schools. 

Three general features which modified the coiirse of educa- 
tional progress in the North during the period under considera- 
tion, ought to be pointed out. (a) There was no dominant 
religious system. "The absence of a dominant church has 
helped to protect the school system of the United States from 
the perils and odium of religious strife."^ (b) A constant 
stream of immigration flowed into every state, and from the 
older states a stream of emigration poured out as well. This 
double stream tended to drain the rural districts of the older 
states of their best and most progressive blood, and to intro- 
duce into the country many foreigners of varying degrees of 
ability, (c) The control of the schools by small local units. 

The altruistic theory of the development of the United States 
public tax-supported school system seems in the light of the 
facts to be utterly inadequate to account for the phenomenon. 
It has been shown that the humanitarian leaders Avere drawn 
from a class which was not in sympathy with the industrial 
conditions of the period; they were members of a class which 
did not profit, but lost through the industrial transformation 
which occurred during the first half of the nineteenth century. 
These men appealed to the past. The peculiar exigencies of the 
time brought them and the masses of the people into agreement 
as to certain planks of a platform of principles ; but, fundament- 
ally, the ideals of these two parties were radically at variance. 
John Ruskin is a notable example of a distinguished human- 
itarian leader. Ruskin lived in a mystical golden past; he ideal- 
ized and glorified a period and a social condition which can 

' Adams, Francis. The Theory of Free Sr^hools, G. 

[1211 



122 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

never return. This man joined hands with the workingmen, 
and has been termed a socialist: but, at heart, he was an aristo- 
crat. He abhorred the modern ideals of democracy ; the demand 
for universal suffrage, for example, he considered to be caused 
by a delu&ion. The vitality of the movement for tax-supported 
schools was derived not from the humanitarian leaders, but 
from the growing class of wage-earners. 

If generalization is warranted by the data liefore ns, the con- 
clusion is warranted that, in modern times, the trend of educa- 
tional advance is determined by economic evolution. On the 
one hand, the student of educational problems, who is striving 
to improve the work of the public schools, must study the trend 
of industrial and social evolution ; and, on the other hand, the 
political economist and social scientist must consider the eco- 
nomic and social significance of uniform advance in educational 
and indu-strial evolution. 



[122] 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 123 



APPENDIX I 

ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES 

A Comparison 

In England, the trend of educational advance was very dif- 
ferent during the period 1820 to 1850, from that Avhich has been 
traced in the United States. There the rise of the factory sys- 
tem and the (development of industrial toAvns antedated the 
couree of industrial progress in this country. All the phenom- 
ena relating to the congestion of the laboring population, 
pauperism, child and women labor, juvenile crime and the like, 
were to be found in England in an aggravated form; but the 
free tax-supported school did not obtain a foot-hold on English, 
soil during this period. The industrial conditions which seem 
•to have been such a potent factor in our educational advance, 
were found in England. If England's industrial progress 
'during this era paralleled, or was a step in advance, of that in 
the United States, why did not educational advance keep pace? 
Does England offer a flat contradiction to the view that educa- 
tional progress is the necessary consequence of industrial ad- 
Tance ? 

In 1850, a Traveling Bachelor of the University of Cambridge 
published the results of a careful investigation as to the social 
■condition and the education of the masses of the English people. 
A very dismal picture is painted.^ Of all the children living 
in England and Wales, between the ages of five and fourteen 
years, it was declared, according to reliable information, over 
one-half were not attending any school.- "In most of our 
schools, it is necessary in order to provide salaries for the teach- 



1 Kay. .Tospph. The Social Condition ami Eiliirntion of the People. 3: 461. ct seq. 

2 /hid.. 4(il. 

[123] 



124 BULLETIN OF THE UXIVEKSITY OF WISCONSIN 

ers. and funds for tlie support of the school, to charge from 2d 
to 4d a week per head for the instruction of scholars. This 
absolutely excludes the children of all paupers, and of all poor 
persons."" This writer declared that while in England, in 
1850. "the aristocracy is richer and more powerful than that of 
any other country in the world, the poor are more depressed, 
more pauperized, more numerous in comparison to the other 
classes, more irreligious, and very much woree educated than 
the poor of any other European nation, solely excepting Russia, 
Turkey. South Italy, Portugal and Spain."* The above is a 
deliberate statement of an English scholar, made after a careful 
investigation ; it is not the opinion of an agitator. 

During the period which we have been considering there oc- 
eurTed three important agitations in which the working people 
of England were deeply interested; the movement which bore 
as its fruit the Reform Bill of 1832. the Chartist movement, and 
the fight for the repeal of the Corn Laws. Two of the struggles 
were successful in the main; one failed of direct resuM.s. A 
brief consideration of these important movements may thi'ow 
light upon our problem, and enable us to more clearly discern 
the forces w^hich were at work. It is probably indisputable that 
these agitations w'ere the direct outcome of the development of 
industry" and the rise of a manufacturing and commercial class, 
and the growth of a wage-earning, urban-dwelling population. 
In England at the opening of the nineteenth centuiy, political 
and economic power was almost exclusively in the hands of a 
land-0"wning aristocracy, — a social factor of little consequence 
in the United States. The Reform Bill extended political power 
to the middle — commercial and manufacturing — class ; this leg- 
islation was the outcome of a union between the middle and 
wage-earning classes; but the most valuable and desirable fruits 
of the victoiy which was attained by means not strictly legal, 
to put it mildly, were appropriated, in the nmin, by the middle 
class: and only a sop wa;^) thrown to their ([uondam aUies, the 
wage-earners. "The working class in the opinion of many of 
their ablest and most influential representatives were not merely- 



■'J bid., 464. 
* Ibid., 538. 

[124] 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 125 

left out but shouldered out. This was all the more exasperat- 
ing because the excitement aiid agitation by the strength of 
■which the Reform Bill was carried in the teeth of so much re- 
sistance were kept up b}^ the working men."^ "llightly or 
iwrongly they [the masses] believed their strength had been 
kept in reserve or in terrorism to secure the carrjdng of the 
Ilef orm Bill, and that -when it Avas carried they were immedi- 
ately thrown over by those whom they had helped to pass it."*^ 
In short, the Reform Bill prevented a revolution; the middle 
-class would have availed itself of the brute strength of the 
working class in order to have attained its end, — political 
power.' The Reform Bill admitted the middle class into polit- 
ical partnership with the aristocratic element which had hither- 
to enjoyed a political monopoly.'^ The middle class, '"on the 
one hand, had taken advantage of the real wants of the classes 
below it, and of the social ideas which had been called into ex- 
istence by the French Revolution; it had not scrupled to em- 
ploy what cannot be regarded in any other light than as an un- 
constitutional pressure to bear upon Parliament. On the other 
hand, it had worked constitutionally by an alliance with one 
■of the governing classes, namely the whig^s. "^ 

In the United States, thanks to the influence of the frontier, 
manhood suffrage became a reality. In England, the frontier 
clement wa&i lacking; the balance of power was different. The 
landed aristocracy was forced to admit the middle class into 
the monopoly of political authority; but at this point the two 
enfranchised interests combined to prevent further extension 
of political privileges. In the United States the alignment of 
interests in the struggle for the extension of the suffrage was 
between the educated and wealthy classes of the seaboard against 
'the frontier and the Avage earners. 

The laborins: classes of Ensland felt that thev had been 



5 McCarthy. A Histori/ of Our Oirti Timrs. 1: 110. 

''■IbiiL, 111. 

''Ibid., 108; also Gammage.. History of the Chartist Movement, 3 et seq. 

*The "reformed Commons" passed, ia 1833, an act granting "£20,000 for the 
purposes of education. "' — the lieginniim. in England, of national gi'ants for educa- 
tion. 

'Bright, .T. F.. An History of Entihiinl. .": 1432. See also Flower. H. O.. How 
Enyland averted a Revolution of Force. 

[125] 



126 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

tricked aud used as a catspaw by the middle class; and as a 
consequence arose the Chartist movement. This was a wage- 
earners movement."' and was opposed by both the landlords, 
and the eonnnercial and manufacturing cla&s; it proved a fail- 
ure. The English workers lacked the strong helping hand 
which the frontier extended to their American brothers; and 
the opposition was more strongly entrenched. The Dorr war 
was the Chartist movement of Khode Island; although nomi- 
nally a failure, it was in reality a success. The Rhode Islanders 
were able to obtain a considerable extension of suffrage. In 
Rhode Island the land-owning class was not powerful; the 
barriers in the road toward the participation of the masses in 
political affairs were far less formidable than in England. In 
the latter one of the chief factors in the equation was the land- 
lord class ; in Rhode Island, this factor was almost negligible. 

The fight for the repeal of the Corn Laws is interesting, for 
our purpose, chiefly because of the humanitarian aspects in- 
separably connected with it. Here humanitarian principles 
appear in an aspect somewhat different from that assumed in 
the United States ; the setting is not the same. In England the 
humanitarian leaders themselves were animated by motives and 
ideals w^hich were not harmonious. "The general restlessness 
was so intense among the reflecting ConserTatives and among 
the reflecting Liberals ; and those who looked to the past agreed 
with those who looked to the future, in energetic dissatisfaction 
Avith a sterile present. We need only to look around to recog- 
nize the unity of the original impulse which animated men who 
dreaded and hated each other, and inspired books that were as 
far apart as a humoristic novel and a treatise on the Sacra- 
ment."^^ In England we find the familiar type of humanitar- 
ian leaders who looked to the past, who were cast in a mould 
similar to that which furnished the humanitarian leaders of 
New England ; but we also find a second type which is radically 
different, these men were looking ahead and belonged to an 
aggressive, rising class in the community. The presence of the 
second is explained by various students of English history. 



1" Bright, J. F., .1)1 History of Etujlaixl. 4: 86-7. 
" Morley, Life of CoMcn, 1: 90. 

[126] . 



CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 127 

■JMorley writing- of the forces back of the x\nti-Corn Law League 
states: "The promptings of a commercial shrewdness were 
gradually enlarged into enthusiasm for a far-reaching principle, 
and the hard-headed man of business gradually felt himself 
touched with the generous glow of the patriot and the deliv- 
erer."^- "The advocacy of free trade was not mere enthusiasm 
on the part of philantliropists who wished to see their ovm 
countrymen better off; for enthusiasm rarely influences a con- 
siderable percentage of society, even under the most favorable 
circumstances. ... It was an accident, and a very im- 
portant accident, tliat the advocates of free trade could point 
to natural justice, could dilate on the outrageous wrong of the 
system against which they arrayed themselves . . . "^^ 

The year 1850 found the middle and land-owning classes still 
in the saddle ; manhood suffrage and tax-supported schools were 
reforms of the future. Six important points of difference be- 
tween England and the United States during the period 1820- 
1850, may be mentioned. The existence of these differences, 
in view of the preceding discussion, off ere a fairly satisfactory 
reason for the different trend of educational evolution in the 
two coimtries during this period, (a) The absence of sharp 
and rigid demarkation of classes, and of a landed aristocracy, 
in the United States. (b) The existence of the Ajnerican 
frontier. (c) The existence, in England, of an established 
church whose influence Avas due in no small measure, if we may* 
judge from American experience, to the absence of a frontier, 
(d) Considerable differentiation of nationalities and races in 
the United States, (e) The policy of national isolation pur- 
sued by the United States government. Such a policy un- 
doubtedly had an important influence upon internal affairs.^* 
(f) Early immigration into the United States consisted of the 
cream of the English middle class. 

Soon after the suffrage Avas extended^^ in the latter years of 
the decade of the sixties, the act of 1870 was passed which made 
education compulsory, and made it optional with local school 



^"- Ihiih, 142; see also ibid., 141. 
'^Rogers. Cobden and Political Opinion, 19. 
" Gumplowicz, fSociologie et Politique sec. 27. 
"Green, T. H., Wor7;s, 3: 339. Previously cited. 

■ [127] 



128 BULLETIN OF THE UXIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

boards Avhether fees should be collected or not.^'^ This long 
step forward in the history of English education is comparable 
with the rapid progress in Ehode Island during the latter part 
•of the decade of the forties, after the extension of the suffrage. 
The resolution of the political and social forces acting in Eng- 
land during our period does not necessitate a restatement of 
the conditions, social, political and economic, which produced 
the tax-supported public school; but insitead it tends to 
strengthen and confirm the opinion which was formed as a re- 
sult of the study of industrial and educational evolution in the 
United States during the last three decades of the first half of 
the last century. After 1850, humanitarianism assumed, in 
England, a phase similar to that which has been considered in 
the United States. The workingmen changed their attitude 
somewhat; they deserted the individualism of earlier days, and 
turned toward collectivist ideals. The Eeform Act of 1867 and 
subsequent ones were fathered by a Conservative ministrj-, not 
one adhering to Liberal principles. The true basis of the alli- 
ance of Tories and working people "was their common dissent 
from individualistic liberalism."^" "When young England 
came under the guidance of i\Ir. Disraeli. Tories could afford 
at times to exhibit sientimental friendliness toward workmen 
engaged in conflict with manufacturer's whose mills offended the 
aesthetic taste, and whose radicalism shook the political author- 
ity of benevolent aristocrats."^^ 



^'^ Casson and Whiteley, The Education Act of 1902, 23. 

'■'' Dicey. A. V.. Laic and Public Opinion in England, 251-52. 

"Ibid.. l'4l'. 



/ 



[128] 



CARLTON — ^ECONOMIC IlCPLIJENCEiS UPON EDUCATION 129 



APPENDIX II 



BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES^ 

Henry Barnard (1811-1900) descended from an old Hart- 
ford family. He graduated from Yale in 1830; and was ad- 
mitted to the bar five yeare later. From 1837 to 1840, Dr. 
Barnard was a member of the Connecticut legislature. He was 
appointed, in 1838, seeretaiy of the newly created Connecticut 
board of school commissioners, and served four years in that 
capacity. From 1843 to 1849, Dr. Barnard served as commis- 
sioner of schools of the state of Rhode Island; he was recalled 
to Connecticut in 1850 to become state sfuperintendent of schools. 
He was president of the University of Wisconsin from 1857 to 
1859 ; and was appointed first United States commissioner of 
education in 1867. This famous and indefatigable educational 
leader was the author of many books and articles upon educa- 
tional topics; the editor of the Connecticut Common School 
Journal for eight years, of the Rhode Island School Journal 
from 1843 to 1849. and of Barnard's American Journal of Edu- 
cation. 

Orestes A. Brownson (1803-1876) was bom in Stockbridge, 
Vermont. His father died while he was yet a small boy, leav- 
ing the family in poverty. The boy was cared for by elderly 
relatives who reared him in ''a simple, precise and puritanical 
way. ' ' Mr. Brownson was educated in an academy at Ballston ; 
he entered the universalist ministry, but afterwards accepted the 
Roman Catholic faith. He was the author of several books, and 
was much interested in the projects of Robert Ow^en. 

James G. Carter (1795-1849) was the son of a farmer. In 
1820. he graduated from Harvard, and during the next ten years 



* See section on "The Humanitarian Movement," ch. III. 

9 [129] 



130 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 

taught school at Leominster, ^lassachusetts. ]\Ir. Carter ^vas the 
pioneer agitator of the educational movement of the period; he 
began the work for educational reform about 1823. As a mem- 
l)er of the Massachusetts legislature he drafted the bill which 
■established the famous Miassachusetts Board of Education of 
which Horace Mann was the first secretary. Mr. Carter was ap- 
pointed a member of this board. 

William Ellery Channing (1780-1842), a clergyman, was 
the son of a lawyer, and the grandson of a signer of the Declara- 
tion of Independence. He graduated, with high honors, from 
Harvard. Mr. Channing was a unitarian and took an active part 
in' the agitations for organized charity, temperance reform, edu- 
cation for workingmen, and the abolition of slavery. 

James Freeman Clarke (1810-1888) was al&o a unitarian 
clergyman. He was the grandson of General William Hull and 
a cousin of Commodore Isaac Hull. Harvard College and Har- 
vard Divinity School claim him as an alumnus. 

Halph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882). "Eight generations 
of cultured, conscientious, and practical ministers preceded 
him." Harvard was also the alma mater of this famous' philoso- 
pher and transcendentalist. 

Frederic Hekry Hedge (1805-1890), educator and minister, 
was the son of a teacher. He also graduated from Harvard. 

Samuel Lewis (1799-1854) was the first and only superin- 
tendent of common schools in Ohio. He came from old New 
England stock. His father was the captain of a coasting vessel ; 
hut in 1814 he gave up the sea-faring life and settled on an 
Ohio farm. Mr. Lewis was a lawyer; he was admitted to the 
har in 1822. 

Horace Mann (1796-1859), the most famous of the educa- 
tional leaders of the period, was a farmer boy. He graduated from 
Brown University in 1819, was admitted to the bar in 1823, was 
elected to the state legislature in 1827, became president of the 
state senate in 1836. was secretaiy of the Massachusetts Board 
of Education from 1837 to 1848, was elected to Congress in 1848, 
and was nominated, in 1852, governor of Massachusetts, but was 
defeated at the polls. At the time of his death, Mr. Mann was 
president of Antioch College, in Ohio. Horace Mann worked un- 

[130] 



CARLTON ECONOMIC INFT,LENCES UPON EDUCATION 131 

ceasingly in the cause of education, and undoubtedly hastened 
his death by his devotion to work of educational betterment. 
His reports as secretary' of the Massachusetts Board of Educa- 
tion are educational classics. 

Theodore Parker (1810^1860). The father of Mr. Parker 
was a federalist and a unitarian ; his grandfather is said to have 
commanded the company of minute men that were fired upon by 
the British on April 19, 1775. He was a indent at Harvard, 
and entered the ministry. 

Robert Rantoul, Jr. (1805-1852) was a lawyer and a Har- 
vard graduate. His father was a druggist, and was for some 
years a member of the state legislature. The father was much 
interested in refonn movements. Robert, Junior, was a member 
of the state legislature, and later of the United States Congress. 
He was also a member of the first board of education in Massa- 
chusetts. 

George Ripley (1802-1880) was the son of a prominent New 
England merchant and politician. He was a graduate of Har- 
vard College and Harvard Divinity School. Mr. Ripley was a 
student of philosophy, and one of the leaders in the Brook Farm 
experiment. 

Henbt David Thoreau (1817-1862). Thoreau's father was 
"bred to the mercantile line and continued in it until failure 
in business;" he then became a pencil maker. Mr. Thoreau grad- 
uated from Harvard in 1837. 



[131] 



132 BULLETIN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN 



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CARLTON — ECONOMIC INFLUENCES UPON EDUCATION 133 

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[135] 



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